


25 Days of Sharkbait

by rangerhitomi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Attempted Confessions, Christmas Fluff, Confessions, Everyone Cockblocks Ryoga Kamishiro, Family Bonding, Gen, M/M, Slightly aged-up characters, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 23:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 21,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5605690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryoga Kamishiro spends almost a whole month trying to tell Yuma Tsukumo how he feels, except everyone is determined to cockblock him at every opportunity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stuffed With Fluff

**Author's Note:**

> I found this 2014 December challenge buried deep in my computer, and I thought if I had to find renewed secondhand embarrassment by it, so did others.

They were for children, which Ryoga certainly was not, but Rio thought they looked “really cute!” and dragged him with because he was the one with the motorcycle and she was the one with the authority. So he ended up taking her to the mall, where annoying holiday music poured out of the loudspeakers and flashing lights were strung over almost every conceivable surface in the place.

He looked around casually as they walked through the mall together, praying that nobody would see him going into a store designed for little girls to build their own stuffed animals and dress them up in frilly outfits. As he contemplated shaking Rio off and hiding in a picture booth until she was finished building whatever ridiculous stuffed creature she was going to make, he heard a familiar voice.

“Shark!”

Naturally.

Yuma smiled and caught up to them, and Rio returned the smile, though Ryoga pointedly ignored the tiny quirk of her eyebrow that he knew was directed at him –

he regretted ever telling her anything about Yuma _ever_

\- but he just sighed and crossed his arms, putting on his best _whatever_ face, and replied with a nonchalant “Yuma.”

“What are you doing here?” Yuma was completely unfazed by Ryoga’s lame attempt at being indifferent. He was probably used to it by now.

Ryoga shrugged. “Rio wanted to… buy something.”

Rio cleared her throat. “Ryoga and I were going to the new Bear-I-Am shop and make a stuffed animal for our holiday collection. Would you like to join us?”

If Yuma was at all suspicious about a name as stupid as _Bear-I-Am_ sounding unpleasantly close to a certain other word that made Ryoga want to punch things, the fact that Rio had to mention their stuffed animal holiday collection was a more pressing issue to address.

“You have a stuffed animal collection?” And the annoying kid had the _nerve_ to grin at Ryoga. “Aww, Shark, I didn’t know you were into collecting plushies!”

Ryoga opened his mouth to retort but Rio interrupted. “Yes, we have quite the collection!”

Yuma grinned at Ryoga. “Is that right?”

It was, but Yuma wasn’t supposed to know about it, and Rio grabbed Ryoga by the hand and started pulling him into the store while he shot furtive glances all around him for any sign of someone he went to school with. “You want to join us, Yuma? It’s lots of fun!”

Of course, Yuma said yes, and he bounded into the store after the twins.

“Welcome to Bear-I-Am!” the repulsively over-enthusiastic woman at the counter gushed. “Would you three kids like to make a stuffed animal? We’re having a sale on holiday outfits and…”

Ryoga stopped listening. It wasn’t bad enough that Yuma had to find out about the holiday plush collection he and Rio had since they were too young to remember, but now he was going to get dragged into _making_ one _in public_ with _Yuma_.

As much as he pretended he could care less what people thought of him, the truth was, he cared quite a lot. He _wanted_ to be with Yuma. He _wanted_ to be able to have fun with Yuma and smile and laugh, but…

“Hey Shark, look!” Yuma snapped him out of his reverie by waving the empty husk of a shark plush in his face. “They have sharks!” He grinned and Ryoga rolled his eyes (even though it was hard not to smile at how excited Yuma was).

(How could Yuma make him feel this happy?)

He didn’t notice Rio slip away to make her bear; his attention was barely on the shark he was filling with cotton. Yuma decided on a horse (“if I have to have a shark, you should have a horse,” Ryoga had said) and was having a difficult time stuffing the cotton in its narrow legs. Ryoga set his shark down and helped Yuma; their hands brushed together and for an eternity that was probably only a few seconds, Ryoga stopped breathing.

“Are you ready for your shark to get sewn up?” the lady asked, and Ryoga pulled his away and turned back to his shark, face reddening. Yuma glanced at him curiously.

“Yeah.”

She picked it up. “Oh! But you haven’t put your heart into it yet.” That was one of the most ridiculous things Ryoga had ever heard, but at his confused expression, the lady picked up a small plastic heart. “You write your name on it, and then put it inside your animal. That way, part of your heart will always be in it!”

“Do sharks have hearts?” Yuma wondered, and Ryoga shook his head in disbelief.

“Of course they do, Yuma. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Yuma tilted his head. “Then they must have a really big heart.”

Ryoga took the heart from the lady and picked up a marker. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re a shark and you have one of the biggest hearts ever.”

It was such a simple response, such a _heartfelt_ response, but it was really mushy at the same time, so he couldn’t think of anything to say to that and turned back to his heart.

Yuma grinned and reached across to take a heart of his own. Ryoga wrote his name carefully on his heart before handing it and the shark to the woman; Yuma scribbled his name on his and shoved the heart into the horse’s neck.

“The horse’s heart is in its chest, Yuma.” Ryoga reached over and tapped Yuma’s chest. “Just like yours is.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Rio making a gagging face and scowled, aware that his face was red again; Yuma didn’t seem to notice and simply smiled as they waited.

When the lady handed their plushes back, Yuma reached for a Santa hat and shoved it onto his horse’s head. A hat wouldn’t fit on his shark’s head, but Yuma found a Santa beard instead. He laughed at the shark wearing a fluffy white beard, and not even Ryoga could resist smiling a little too.

As they left the shop carrying their plushes in bags (Rio’s bear was decked out in a Santa hat, coat, boots, and beard), Yuma spotted his sister, carrying several bags, and turned to Ryoga. “Hey, thanks for today! It was lots of fun!”

“Yeah,” Ryoga said, and he was surprised to find he meant it. Not that he would ever admit it, of course.

“Oh!” Yuma turned. “Tomorrow, we’re putting up holiday decorations. You should come over, Shark! And you, Shark’s sis!”

Rio rolled her eyes. “ _I’m_ going to a candy shop with Kotori, but _Ryoga_ would be more than happy, wouldn’t you?” She nudged him.

He grunted in response and Yuma smiled again. “Sounds great! See you tomorrow, Shark! Bye, Shark’s sis!”

They watched him bound over to his sister, who dumped several of her shopping bags in his arms, and Ryoga sighed.

“What’s wrong with you this time?” Rio teased as they headed out of the mall.

Ryoga glanced back at Yuma. “Nothing.”

He was lying, and she knew he was lying, and he knew _she_ knew exactly what his problem was.

Maybe he could take care of his problem tomorrow when he went over to Yuma’s place.


	2. Lights

“Hold the ladder steady, Yuma!”

“I’m trying! You shouldn’t wiggle around so much up there!”

“It’s too cold for this-”

It was starting to snow, and Ryoga and Yuma were outside trying to dangle Christmas lights from the roof. Ryoga’s fingers were getting numb from the cold wind, and he was finding it nearly impossible to loop the lights around the gutter. He accidentally dropped them three times, and Yuma kept offering Ryoga his gloves, but they were big, bulky gloves and there was no way he was going to be able to string the tiny lights on the house with them on.

“If you sit on the roof and hold the ladder from the top, I can come up there and help,” Yuma called up to him.

That was reckless and stupid. Besides, Yuma’s hands weren’t going to be very helpful all wrapped up in thick gloves. “Yuma, there needs to be someone on the ground to-”

He flung out a frozen hand to steady himself as Yuma began climbing the ladder, ignoring Ryoga’s spluttered protests. True to Yuma’s intent, Ryoga ended up climbing onto the roof to hold the ladder with stiff fingers so they both didn’t topple off and fall ten feet to the frozen ground (of course, Ryoga swore under his breath the whole time as Yuma approached the gutter).

“Sooo… do I just…” Yuma frowned, and his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth as he focused on stringing the lights that Ryoga’s fingers had been unable to loop properly.

Ryoga was so focused on the fact that Yuma looked _unfairly cute_ with his tongue like that and his eyes and nose scrunched up while he clumsily looped lights around the gutter that he didn’t realize Yuma was leaning a bit too heavily and Ryoga’s frozen hands couldn’t keep a good grip on the ladder.

The last thing Ryoga wanted to do this season was spend any amount of time in the hospital as Yuma recovered from a broken arm, leg, back, or all three, and there was that stupidly instinctive part of him that kept telling him _don’t let Yuma get hurt!_ so he flung himself toward the edge of the roof and caught Yuma under the arms with his own arms. He was slipping, he could feel it, but he gritted his teeth and braced his foot against the gutter to balance himself as he hoisted Yuma onto the rooftop with him.

They glanced down at the ladder, which had fallen to the ground, and then at each other, and Ryoga realized too late that he was still holding Yuma in a more intimate way than he intended. He coughed slightly and pulled away.

“Are you all right?” Ryoga said in his best indifferent voice.

“Yeah.” Yuma glanced back at the ground. “We’re gonna have to wait for Sis and Gran to get home and let us down though, since I don’t think Obomi will do anything but call me a moron.”

Ryoga wanted to agree with Obomi – Yuma had been reckless in climbing the ladder without a firm support from the ground – but he just shivered. It was too cold on the roof, exposed to the icy wind blowing snow around, to be mad about it at this point.

“Shark, you look really cold.” Yuma scooted closer. “Your face is red.”

The cold was probably not the only thing making Ryoga’s face red at this point, and it made a good excuse when Yuma took his frozen hands in his warm gloved ones.

“What are you doing?” Ryoga said in alarm, face suddenly hot.

“Your hands are so cold that I can feel them through my gloves,” Yuma muttered.

Ryoga didn’t really have anything to say to that, and the warmth slowly returning to his fingers was welcome, so he let it happen.

“Why didn’t you wear a hat and gloves?” Yuma chided him after a few minutes, rubbing Ryoga’s hands gently.

Ryoga couldn’t remember where he’d put his winter clothes, but if he was going to be honest with himself, with Yuma sitting close and holding his hands, it was probably a good thing he couldn’t remember. “I don’t know.”

“I could have let you borrow some of mine, I mean, I have like five pairs of gloves and…”

Yuma went on in that vein for a few minutes, and Ryoga couldn’t stop himself from looking at the tiny snowflakes landing on Yuma’s eyelashes and the hair poking out from under his hat, and he looked-

Ryoga shifted his hands. “Hey, Yuma.”

He didn’t know why he wanted to say this all of a sudden, only that this was a great chance, the best he’d had in a while, and if he _didn’t_ say it soon he was probably going to crack up and do something _really_ embarrassing in the near future, and maybe the slush-covered rooftop in the biting wind and snow wasn’t the most _romantic_ place, but they were _alone_ for a change, and it would have to do.

“Yeah?”

Ryoga cleared his throat. “Yuma, I, um, I’ve been wanting to say that-”

The roar of Yuma’s sister’s car echoed through the air, and Yuma perked up, pulling his hands away at last. “Oh, Sis and Gran are home!”

Ryoga groaned inwardly; could they not have waited two more minutes?

Akari yelled at them for being irresponsible for about five minutes, and reluctantly propped the ladder against the house – _you two didn’t even get half the lights strung up_ – but their grandmother invited Ryoga in for tea to help him warm up, which he gratefully accepted, though he couldn’t look at Yuma because his almost-confession lingered in his heart still.

_Why do I feel like this, Yuma? Why do_ you _make me feel like this?_

When they’d finished and Ryoga stood up to leave, Yuma looked up at him. “Hey, Shark, what were you saying before?”

Ryoga forced his face into a look of indifference. “Saying when?”

“On the roof.” Yuma tilted his head again, and Ryoga had to look down because Yuma was giving him a curious pout and Ryoga couldn’t handle it.

“Oh. I was…”

He could feel Akari and their grandmother staring at him, and there was no way he was saying anything in front of them.

“I wanted to thank you for… inviting me to do things with you.”

It was a lousy excuse, but the Tsukumos seemed all right with it, and he exhaled discreetly before grabbing his jacket.

“Oh, Ryoga, dear,” their grandmother called out, “if you want to come over tomorrow, we’re putting up a tree!”

“Yeah, you’ll be nice and warm inside!” Yuma piped up.

Ryoga paused for a moment and fiddled with his zipper. “Okay.”

Maybe they would be able to catch some alone time tomorrow.


	3. Family Tree

Fake pine needles scratched at Ryoga’s arms and face while he and Yuma tried to prop up the tree in the corner of the living room. He tried to balance it over the tree stand even as Yuma jiggled it around to try to get it _in_ the tree stand, with the result that it kept brushing against his nose and cheeks, and even his hair.

Still, he preferred holding it here, because Yuma had his face practically buried in plastic needles as he knelt next to the stand.

“Wait, wait, I think I-” as the needles tickled his nose, Yuma paused to sneeze, violently shaking the tree in the process “-never mind.”

“It’ll be nice and warm inside,” Ryoga muttered, and it took glancing down at Yuma, whose hair was filled with green plastic needles and face covered in tiny nicks to remind him of why he was even there in the first place, struggling to set up a six foot fake Christmas tree.

“Did you say something, Shark?” Yuma sounded distracted.

“No. Do you almost have it?”

“Yeah, I-”

There was a _thud_ and when Ryoga felt the weight balance out, he knew Yuma had finally gotten it after more than five minutes of struggling. Yuma bounced to his feet, grinning at Ryoga. “We make a great team, huh?”

Ryoga’s mind flashed back for a fleeting moment to the night where Yuma had ignored his demands to stay out of his life. The night where he and Yuma had fought together and Yuma had protected him, had refused to give up on him, had refused to accept that he was anything more than a good person who needed a friend.

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

They stood in silence for a minute before Yuma reached out and patted Ryoga’s shoulder. “You look kind of lost in thought. You okay?”

Ryoga cleared his throat. What if he could bring himself to say it this time?

“Yeah, I just… was thinking about when we first met, and-”

“Oh good, you have the tree up!”

_For the love of god._

Akari set a box full of ornaments on the floor and picked one up. “You want to help, Ryoga? We do it together as a family every year.”

A family tradition? “I don’t want to intrude-”

Their grandmother entered the living room. “Nonsense! I think Yuma would like that.”

“Yeah!” Yuma smiled and pulled on Ryoga’s arm, leading him to the box. He picked out a small, glittering skull and held it up for Ryoga to see. “Mom and Dad brought home a ton of cool ornaments on their travels. Like this one, Dad got from, uh, Mexico, I think.” He pulled out another ornament, this time a miniature nutcracker. “And this one they got in Germany! Isn’t that cool?”

He looked so happy that Ryoga couldn’t help but smile too. “Yeah.”

As they placed ornaments on the tree, Yuma and Haru talked about each one – mostly for Ryoga’s benefit, he realized, seeing as Akari sometimes mouthed along with the stories – but they were interesting, nonetheless. Every so often, Yuma would place an ornament and gaze at it for a long moment, and at least once Ryoga was surprised to see Yuma’s eyes glisten with tears.

Neither Haru nor Akari seemed to notice, as they were busy at work stringing tinsel and placing decorations on the walls, but Ryoga stepped close to Yuma and placed a hand on Yuma’s shoulder.

(He wanted to hold Yuma’s hand but he wasn’t sure yet if that would be well-received, either by Yuma or by Yuma’s family.)

“Sorry,” Yuma said sheepishly, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s silly.”

“It’s not silly.” Ryoga knew all too well what it was like to miss family members, especially during the holidays. He and Rio had been alone so long that the holidays weren’t really special to them anymore. Not when everyone else talked about being with family and talking and laughing and spending time together. They had no family but each other. “It’s never silly to miss people you love.”

Yuma gave him a half-smile. “I never really expected you to say stuff like that, Shark.” He sniffled. “Do you miss someone?”

Ryoga had never talked to Yuma about his parents. He never talked to anyone about them; some people could find out easily enough, but no one had ever really seemed to care. But Yuma understood. His parents were both gone too, and all he had was his sister and grandmother. “My parents.”

Yuma’s face crumpled again. “I’m so sorry, Shark, I shouldn’t have asked-”

_It’s not a big deal,_ Ryoga was about to say, but it _was_ , wasn’t it? “You didn’t know. It’s okay, Yuma. Rio and I manage.”

But Yuma didn’t seem cheered at all, or relieved, or anything but sad, really, and Ryoga wished Akari and Haru would leave so he could, _I don’t know, hug him or something,_ but it would be very rude and probably off-putting to tell two people to get out of their own living room so he could have a _moment_ with their fifteen-year-old grandson/brother so he didn’t say anything.

“Yuma, Ryoga, you two done with the ornaments?” Akari called out, and Yuma straightened up.

“Yeah! Do you need help with anything else?”

“No, we’re done!” Haru smiled. “Thank you for helping today, Ryoga! You’re always welcome here.”

“You should come over every day,” Yuma whispered, tugging on Ryoga’s sleeve. “I don’t want you to be…” He trailed off, looking embarrassed.

_Alone._

He and Rio had been alone for so long he’d forgotten what it was like to feel appreciated, to feel what it was to be wanted and for people to worry about him in a way other than _that Kamishiro boy is going to end up in jail one of these days_. With Rio in a coma for so long, Ryoga had been alone. He had been so alone.

“You'd never leave me alone, so I'll be fine,” Ryoga said quietly, and _god those were cheesy words_ but they made Yuma smile and that made all the difference.


	4. Gingerbread Houses

It was unfair, really, how _cute_ it was when Yuma stuck his tongue out while focusing on a particularly difficult task.

They sat at Yuma’s dining room table making gingerbread houses, which was something that Ryoga had never done before and it was probably a good thing, because he was about to throw the gingerbread cookie pieces across the room.

“They keep breaking,” he complained, and Yuma looked up from his perfectly stable house to snort with laughter at Ryoga’s broken cookies, haphazardly repaired with the crappy frosting that was supposed to be some kind of adhesive.

Yuma scooted his chair closer and leaned over Ryoga’s house. “You’re supposed to hold them in place until the frosting hardens, Shark.”

As if Ryoga was patient enough for that. Since when was _Yuma_ patient enough for that, anyway? “I tried. It’s taking forever.”

“Here.” Yuma smothered frosting onto the edges of Ryoga’s broken gingerbread walls. “If we just wait a few minutes, they should stay.”

And, instead of letting Ryoga hold his own gingerbread house up, Yuma leaned entirely too close and held two of the walls in place.

It was the longest three minutes of Ryoga’s life, sitting there with Yuma leaning halfway in his lap, their hands practically touching, but Ryoga couldn’t shift his hands to touch Yuma’s because if he did the gingerbread house would fall over again and he just wanted to be done with the godforsaken thing.

But they were _alone_ , this time, and Akari and Haru were out of the house, so wouldn’t it be the best time?

“Yuma,” he began, clearing his throat gently, failing miserably as he tried to ignore the fact that Yuma was now resting his head on Ryoga’s shoulder as they waited for the frosting to harden, “I really…”

 _God_ , was he a wuss; he couldn’t even say the thing he’d been rehearsing for like three months, waiting for the perfect time, the perfect opportunity – and this was it, right? It was a private moment, but not too intimate, and they were both enjoying themselves, doing something _normal_ , something _domestic_ , and-

“I am unfamiliar with this tradition,” Astral’s voice said all of a sudden, and Ryoga could have snapped his wall in half again.

Yuma pulled his head off Ryoga’s shoulder and glanced up. “Oh, there you are. I haven’t seen you all day.”

“I was resting,” Astral said tonelessly, “but that’s not important. It sounded like Shark was in the middle of saying something.”

Was this the universe conspiring against him? Ryoga hadn’t exactly had a normal, pleasant life, and the one thing he did have that was nice that wasn’t his sister (as if she could be _nice_ sometimes) was sitting four inches away, holding up Ryoga’s gingerbread house for him, completely oblivious to Ryoga’s stupid attempts to confess that he might have feelings for Yuma.

(That he _did_ have feelings for Yuma.)

(That he really just wanted to hold Yuma in his arms and feel Yuma’s arms around him and-)

( _God_ , he was pathetic.)

“Oh yeah!” Yuma laughed. “People keep interrupting you lately, huh?”

_You have no idea._

“What did you want to say?” Yuma went on, taking his hands away from the house. The walls stayed in place.

He couldn’t very well tell Yuma _now_ , with Astral watching, could he? Well, Yuma and Astral were always together, so Astral would find out eventually (probably within a few minutes) and it wasn’t as though he didn’t want Astral to know, but at the same time…

Ryoga just wanted to tell _Yuma_ , and he wanted it to be a special moment, just the two of them.

“I just wanted to say… thanks… for helping me keep these walls up,” Ryoga grunted, and the answer seemed to appease Yuma.

“No problem!” Yuma pulled a bowl of mixed candies toward them. “Now we just have to put the candy on it!”

Ryoga nodded, and as they put the candy on their houses, he had to force his mind away from thoughts of what their house might look like, if they could be together, if they were still together in ten years and their relationship survived this Barian thing and college and…

…and he couldn’t help but laugh a bit when Yuma finished putting gumdrops on the roof and half the roof fell off into the chocolate garden.


	5. Santa Tenjo

“Shark, who is ‘Santa’?”

They were back at the mall, except this time, Rio had declined going to _see Santa_ , which Ryoga also wanted to decline but he couldn’t because Yuma wanted to get pictures on Santa’s lap.

_You’re fifteen years old,_ he wanted to say, and actually, maybe he did say it because Yuma had pouted at him and went off on how _you shouldn’t ruin the magic of the season, Shark!_ and it was clear to Ryoga that Yuma had spent way too much time watching badly dubbed American Christmas movies.

(Apparently, Yuma was going to sit him down and force him to watch all three _The Santa Clause_ movies, which Ryoga was dreading about as much as you could dread having to watch six hours of that sort of thing.)

Astral hovered behind Yuma, and Ryoga knew right away that today wasn’t going to be a successful day regarding _the thing he had been trying to say to Yuma for the past week_ but sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall didn’t exactly strike Ryoga as the most opportune time for that anyway, so it didn’t bother him as much as it had the past four times.

“Santa is an immortal being who watches children sleep for an entire year and has an army of tiny people he holds hostage at the North Pole, forcing them to make presents for bratty rich six-year-olds, and one night a year he travels across the world on a sled run by flying reindeer with stupid names and somehow manages to sneak into millions of homes through the chimney, where he steals milk and cookies and deposits tacky presents under the tree.”

Astral just stared at him, and Yuma pouted.

“Shaaark, it’s not like that!” Yuma skipped ahead a few feet, looking like a three-year-old. “Santa rewards good kids by leaving them presents, and the elves love working for him and-”

“Wait a moment, Yuma,” Astral interrupted. “This… Santa, he breaks into homes and eats their cookies and leaves gifts only for good children?”

“He goes in through the chimney!” Yuma insisted.

“How does he fit?” Astral looked puzzled.

Yuma was spared having to come up with a reason that a jolly old fat man could squeeze down a narrow chimney when Ryoga caught his first glimpse of this mall’s Santa. “He could have lost a lot of weight from last year.”

He pointed at the mall’s resident rent-a-Santa, a particularly scrawny-looking one who kept pulling at his pants, which were obviously stuffed to give him the more jolly, rotund look (and failed miserably because all it served to do was make the Santa look obviously fake).

“How does an immortal being who subsists entirely off millions of calories’ worth of milk and cookies manage to maintain a slim figure?” Astral wondered, but Ryoga was too busy watching the Santa’s stiff walk – a familiarly stiff walk, at that – and suddenly realized who it was.

“Hey! Kaito!”

The Santa froze mid-step and Yuma let out a small gasp.

“Kaito? _You’re_ Santa?”

_It is a damn good thing you’re cute, Yuma._

Ryoga watched Kaito’s hands clench and unclench before he finally turned around. “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“Yuma wanted to have his picture taken with Santa,” Astral said tonelessly.

Kaito’s eyes darted between Yuma and Ryoga before he finally regained enough composure. “The going rate for getting your picture taken with Santa is fifteen hundred yen.”

Ryoga snorted. “Please, fifteen hundred to sit on _your_ scrawny lap and have a picture? No thanks.”

“Oh, did _you_ want a picture too, Ryoga?” Kaito adopted his typical jerkass sneer and Ryoga had to resist the urge to sock him on the nose. “For _you_ I’ll make it an even twelve. I’ll even let you have a kiss on the cheek, free of charge.”

Ryoga _would_ have punched Kaito on the nose if Yuma hadn’t grabbed his arm in excitement at that very moment.

“How nice of you!” Yuma said, and he sounded like he meant it. “Did Santa hire you?”

“What?” Kaito’s sneer twisted into a frown. “Santa? No, the mall-”

“Hey, Yuma, just go give Santa a hug and I’ll take a picture for free,” Ryoga interrupted, pulling out his D-Gazer.

“Taking pictures on that cheap piece of crap?” And Kaito was back to his old self. “Stingy, aren’t you, Ryoga?”

“I have better things to spend my money on than pictures of Kaito Tenjo in a fat suit and a cotton beard letting children sit on his lap,” Ryoga replied. “Smile, Yuma.”

Yuma threw his arms around Kaito’s neck and grinned, and Ryoga snapped a picture. (Kaito, predictably, was scowling.)

“If another soul sees that picture, I’ll-” Kaito cut off, catching a glimpse of Yuma, who had a dejected look on his face.

Ryoga’s immediate instinct was to wrap his arm around Yuma’s shoulders and lead him away from Kaito, but _not in front of Kaito, there will be **no** physical interaction with Yuma of that nature in front of Kaito or I’ll never hear the end of it _but Kaito didn’t really need to see any physical interaction in the end, it turned out.

He stepped close to Ryoga and hissed in his ear, “ _If you tell anyone that I’m doing a part-time thing as Santa – which I’m doing for Haruto – I will tell Yuma about that torch burning in your heart with his name carved into it._ ”

Ryoga’s teeth ground together as he weighed his options. He could finally get a chance to humiliate Kaito – but in exchange, Kaito would be the one to tell Yuma the thing Ryoga needed to tell him.

Kaito really pissed him off sometimes.

“Come on, Yuma,” Ryoga muttered, placing a hand on Yuma’s back. “Let’s go somewhere else and get our picture taken with a jollier Santa.”

He ignored Kaito’s raised finger as he and Yuma turned away, and Yuma didn’t even notice because he was too busy being excited. Astral seemed to notice and was clearly burning to know what the finger signified but Ryoga didn’t feel like explaining, and to his relief, Astral apparently filed it away for future reference. (He hoped Astral wouldn’t actually use it.)

“You’re going to take a picture too?” Yuma smiled up at him and gripped his elbow.

“Sure.”

He wanted nothing less than to have his picture taken with some guy wearing a stupid red coat but if it cheered Yuma up, it had to be worth it.


	6. Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Snow.

It was white and beautiful and tickled the nose and coated streetlamps and park benches, glistening on trees and reflecting colorful lights strung all over town.

For about five minutes, until it started turning to slush and mud from children running through it and the snow turning to sleet and the hot lights making dripping puddles all over the place and then suddenly people find themselves sloshing through puddles of freezing water up to their ankles and walking under trees and streetlamps that are dripping on their heads.

“Yuma,” Ryoga began, about to complain about the fact that his feet were cold and his hair was hanging limply on his shoulders from getting dripped on and his scarf and coat were starting to soak through, but then he looked at Yuma, who was wearing a sweater under a poofy red vest and Ryoga wondered how they could have gone from Ryoga having no coat or gloves on that rooftop to Yuma not wearing a proper coat or a scarf while out on an evening stroll. “Are you cold?”

He could see Yuma shivering slightly, though Yuma was trying to hide it, and sighed before stepping closer to him, tugging at the knot in his scarf in the process.

“I’ll be okay!” Yuma said with an unconvincing smile. “My coat, er, is in the laundry because I… got it kind of muddy this morning.” He tried to shrug but his shoulders quivered noticeably.

“Yuma, you’re cold.” Ryoga frowned and pulled his scarf off, flinging it around Yuma’s shoulders. “Sorry it’s kind of wet from the snow…”

Yuma looked at him with wide eyes. “But Shark, what about you? Aren’t you cold too?”

They could _share_ , Ryoga thought, but that would be really strange, wouldn’t it? Two boys in public sharing a scarf.

But Yuma was so cold, and didn’t body heat work really well? They could exchange body heat, right? And get back to Yuma’s house as quickly as possible to take off their wet clothes and sit by the fire and have a friendly duel or something.

Ryoga’s coat was pretty big. He could fit both of them inside of it… and that wouldn’t be weird. They were almost back, anyway. No one was around.

So he pulled his coat halfway off and pulled Yuma close to him, wrapping it around Yuma’s shoulders.

“Shark, what are you doing?” To Ryoga’s relief, Yuma didn’t sound weirded out or uncomfortable. Just curious.

“You’re really cold, and you’re going to get sick if we don’t get you home soon,” Ryoga said firmly.

“Oh… I guess you’re right.” Yuma smiled and wrapped his arm around Ryoga’s waist under the coat. “You’re always looking out for me, Shark.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ryoga muttered, but he smiled a little in return. It was nice, holding Yuma close like this and having Yuma hold him back.

They walked along in silence for a little longer, and though Ryoga’s core was warm from Yuma’s body pressing against his, his feet were freezing and he was looking forward to getting back. They were only a few houses down, and he could see the shoddily-hung lights on Yuma’s house. But, since they were alone, and Astral wasn’t around – _yet,_ he thought grimly – maybe now…?

He had barely opened his mouth when Tetsuo barreled around the corner on his skateboard – who the hell rides a skateboard in the snow, anyway? – and nearly rammed right into Yuma and Ryoga.

Ryoga was twice as annoyed now.

“Hey, sorry ‘bout that, Yuma, Sh…ark…?”

Tetsuo frowned at the sight of Yuma and Ryoga sharing a coat and scarf, and Ryoga had a snappy retort ready for when Tetsuo started laughing at the sight of them, but maybe it was Tetsuo’s respect for Ryoga – or fear, Ryoga wasn’t sure which – that kept him quiet.

“Uh, well, sorry for almost running you over,” he said, averting his gaze, as though by pretending he didn’t see it, it had never happened.

Ryoga grunted noncommittally.

“Hey, Tetsuo, we’re going to get some of Gran’s hot chocolate, wanna come?” Yuma offered brightly, and Ryoga prayed inwardly that Tetsuo declined.

Unfortunately, he accepted, and Ryoga found himself sitting in a pair of Yuma’s too-short pajamas at the kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate with Yuma and Tetsuo, his confession perched desperately at the front of his mind. Was he ever going to get a chance to say what he _needed_ to say, or was the entire city going to find ways of interrupting him?


	7. Ice Skating

Asking Yuma to go ice skating with him may or may not have been Ryoga’s most cunning way of getting to hold Yuma’s hand in public without attracting strange looks.

Yuma had never been ice skating before, which surprised Ryoga because Yuma seemed to be a pretty athletic kid, though possibly it was because ice skating didn’t hold the same thrill of impending death as mountain climbing, extreme snowboarding, and vaulting the twenty blocks in gym class. So when Ryoga asked if he wanted to go to the outdoor rink downtown and Yuma looked nervous about it, Ryoga told him _I’ll help you; it’s not too hard_ and Yuma agreed.

“How do you tie these?” Yuma said in frustration, holding the laces to his skates like they were venomous snakes.

Ryoga finished lacing his own and raised an eyebrow. “Here.” He bent down and picked up Yuma’s leg, propping it on his knee, and went to work fixing Yuma’s laces. Yuma had knotted them and missed several holes, with the end result that it took nearly five minutes for Ryoga to undo and re-lace them properly. “All done. Ready?”

Yuma furrowed his brows at his skates and stood, wobbling on the thin blades. “Uh, how do I walk?”

Ryoga grabbed Yuma’s elbow. “Just spread your legs a little, like this-”

He demonstrated, pulling Yuma along gently. Yuma threw his free arm to the side for balance. “How am I supposed to skate like this?”

“It’s easy, I’ll help.”

They reached the gate and Ryoga went first, reaching back for Yuma. Yuma looked at the ice with trepidation before taking a step forward-

-and almost pitching head-first onto the ice.

Ryoga grabbed him as he fell and pulled him back to his feet. “One foot at a time. Just try it like you’re walking.”

Yuma reached for Ryoga’s hand for support, and Ryoga smiled to himself as Yuma stared intently at his feet, taking tentative steps. Before too long, Yuma managed to maintain his balance for longer than ten seconds at a time, and Ryoga decided to go to step two.

“You’re doing good. Now drag your feet a little.”

They traveled slowly along the edge of the rink, Yuma sticking his tongue out in concentration – _god, why is he so cute when he does that_ – and the entire time, Yuma held his hand.

“Shark,” Yuma said after one round around the rink, “how did you learn to ice skate?”

He didn’t really want to think too much about his parents, seeing how Yuma reacted last time, but he cleared his throat and decided to be as tactful as possible. “When I was little, I took… lessons.”

(He’d wanted to play hockey but his mother almost had a heart attack at the thought of her baby boy getting beaten up with sticks, so she made him settle for skating lessons.)

“Ohh.” Yuma smiled. “I didn’t know that!”

“Yeah. Rio did dance” (and for some unfathomable reason their mother agreed to let Rio play softball) “and we both took piano-”

He clenched his teeth together. He hadn’t meant to tell Yuma that.

“Shark, you can play the piano too?” Yuma gripped Ryoga’s hand with both of his, almost throwing Ryoga off-balance. “What else can you do?”

Aside from dueling and playing the bass… nothing, really; he was a fast runner, but Yuma knew that already (god, did Yuma know that already) but it wasn’t like that was something he’d trained to do. It came naturally when you were in a gang.

But Yuma was staring at him expectantly and he decided _this is it, this is the perfect time –_ it wasn’t exactly private, being with a bunch of other skaters, but none of them paid Yuma and Ryoga any mind, and it was a pleasant afternoon, with the sun glistening off the ice, and Yuma’s face was pink from the chilly air and they were holding hands already, so why not-

“Hey Yuma!”

Ryoga stopped abruptly, sending Yuma almost toppling forward. He cast a stony glare at what seemed to be the _entire damn lot_ of Yuma’s friends, and while they didn’t normally bother him too much, they could _not_ have picked a more annoying time to interrupt him.

“Hi guys!”

And Yuma never seemed to notice.

But what if Yuma did notice? What if Yuma just took advantage of the situation because he knew what Ryoga was doing and wanted to keep pushing off Ryoga’s terrible attempts at confessing to him? And damn it, Ryoga would be sad if Yuma rejected him, of course, because Ryoga _really had something for Yuma_ but he just wanted to say the words and get them out of his system because they were annoying as hell and wouldn’t even let him sleep anymore.

Then again, even though Yuma was chatting animatedly to his friends, he was still holding Ryoga’s hand, and that counted for _something_ , right?


	8. Matching Sweaters

“…I attack your Gagaga Gunman with Black Ray Lancer!”

Yuma pouted and shuffled his cards up from their position on the coffee table. “I lose to you more than I win!”

Ryoga gently picked up his own cards and placed them in his card case. They’d been dueling by the fire, because it was overcast with a bitter, freezing rain and they couldn’t really go outside, but since Akari would kill them if they dueled with D-Gazers in the house, they had to settle for the traditional way of dueling.

(It was less fun without virtual reality monsters.)

“I _am_ a former child professional,” Ryoga said with a satisfied smirk. “It’ll take a lot more than that to beat me.”

Yuma stuck out his tongue. “Yeah, well, _I’m_ the World Duel Carnival Champion, so there.”

“Only because _I_ threw the match to save—” Ryoga cut off and grimaced at Yuma’s suddenly dejected expression. He hadn’t realized Yuma felt _sad_ thinking of that match; every time Ryoga thought about it, it only served to remind him how important Yuma was to him. How Yuma had taken his Chaos Numbers from him at the risk of hurting his own body in order to save Ryoga’s soul. He reached slowly across the table and gripped Yuma’s hand firmly. Yuma looked up, eyes wide with surprise, and Ryoga steeled himself.

“You can’t ever understand what that duel meant to me, Yuma.”

Yuma looked down at the table, and his hand fidgeted in Ryoga’s. “If you hadn’t thrown the match, I… I don’t think I would have been able to make that choice. I felt so helpless, and I wanted to save you because you’re… really important to me.”

“And you’re really important to me. Which is why I could never live with myself if you’d had to make that choice. Because I’m not worth you having to make a choice like that.”

The words were coming easier now, and he prayed inwardly for thanks that he wasn’t sounding like a complete idiot.

Yuma shifted on his knees so he could lean his body against the coffee table. “You’re worth more to me than you think you are, Shark.”

Ryoga took a deep breath. As much as he wanted to believe that Yuma meant the same thing that Ryoga meant with those words _– you’re really important to me, I care about you, and you are worth everything –_ he couldn’t help but think… that Yuma felt the same about any of his friends.

His heart pounded and he closed his eyes, tightening his grip on Yuma’s hand. It was now or never, right? “Yuma, when I told you that it was your voice that saved me, I meant it.”

Yuma furrowed his brows, hand shifting in Ryoga’s. “I know. You told me after the-”

“After the duel, I know. But there was something else I wanted to say to you, but it… it kept getting put off, and-”

Footsteps on the staircase reminded him that he wasn’t alone with Yuma – _again_ – and Yuma’s grandmother shuffled into the living room with two bundles in her hands, one red, one purple. Ryoga pulled his hand from Yuma’s.

Perhaps he imagined it, but Yuma’s hand twitched toward his again when they broke apart.

“I made you a sweater, Yuma,” Haru said with a smile, either oblivious to Ryoga’s red face or choosing to ignore it.

The transformation on Yuma’s face was immediate. His eyes widened, this time with excitement, and his mouth fell open. Ryoga watched him shove the sweater over his head, and Yuma looked so…

So _Yuma_.

“And you, Ryoga, dear.”

The heat spread to his ears. “Oh… um… I…” His eyes darted between the two Tsukumos, and Yuma nodded encouragingly. “I’m not in the family, so-”

“Nonsense.” Haru handed the red bundle to Yuma and shook out the purple. It looked really warm, and soft to boot, and when Haru shoved it into his hands, it felt like he was holding cotton. “You’re practically family, with how much you look out for our Yuma. Now go ahead, dear,” she said, a hint of a warning in her eyes. “Try it on.”

Ryoga took a deep breath and pulled off his jacket, casting a wary look at Yuma (who was of course grinning widely now) and slid it over his head. It was… warm, and soft, and smelled—

_like a grove of citrus trees basking in the sun after a gentle rain_

—like Yuma.

He closed his eyes and breathed it in, wondering how he would ever be able to get the smell back into the sweater after a wash, and he hoped he wouldn’t need to wash it for a while—

 _You’re embarrassing,_ he told himself, and he was right but at least he was embarrassing in his own head.

Yuma plopped next to him and Ryoga snapped out of it and Yuma wrapped his arm around Ryoga’s waist but before he could ask any questions, Yuma’s grandmother snapped a picture of them.

And the smell of citrus and trees and rain was _there_ , right next to him, mixed with something else – rice, maybe Yuma had eaten some today – and only then did Ryoga realize Yuma had the shape of an ornament knitted into his sweater, and when Ryoga looked down he realized they matched.


	9. Baking Cookies

Yuma stood at the counter, frowning at his mixing bowl. “Shark, how come my cookie dough isn’t as fluffy as yours?”

Ryoga paused in the middle of stirring his own cookies and leaned over Yuma’s shoulder. The dough looked less like cookies and more like an orangey soupy mixture. “Are you sure you were following the cookie recipe and not the dumpling one?”

He grunted as Yuma elbowed him in the ribs. “Shark, that’s not funny!” he whined. “What do I do?”

With a sigh, Ryoga picked up the recipe card. “Did you put in 340 grams of flour?”

“Yes.”

“How much sugar?”

“Two hundred.”

Clearly he had put in too much wet mixture. “How many eggs?”

“Two.”

Ryoga sighed and reached for the flour container. “Yuma, you were only supposed to put one egg in.”

Yuma’s face crumpled and he tugged on the strings of Ryoga’s apron. “How do I fix it?”

“It’s okay.” Ryoga gently pulled Yuma’s hands away. “All we have to do is add more of everything else and it’ll be fine.” _We’ll have a crap ton of cookies, but at least we won’t have to throw out the mixture._

He helped Yuma measure the flour, butter, sugar, and vanilla and let Yuma stir it as he spread his own mixture over the lightly floured countertop. When Yuma finished, they added the dough together, rolling it out over the counter as evenly as they could and Ryoga sighed at the sheer amount of cookies they were going to have to cut out and decorate. “Well, we should… get started, then.”

Yuma pulled out some cookie cutters and they went to work, cutting out trees and candy canes and snowmen out of the dough and placing it on baking sheets. As the cookies baked, they washed their dishes at the sink and chatted – about nothing, really, or about everything; dueling, school, how Rio wanted to go caroling with them and Kotori (to Ryoga’s dismay, Yuma was completely on board with this idea, so Ryoga reluctantly accepted that his afternoon tomorrow was going to be dedicated to mumbling songs he barely knew under his breath at complete strangers).

_(The things you do for the people who are holding your heart hostage.)_

When the cookies were baked and cooled, Yuma pulled out a few tubes of frosting and went to work smothering the cookies in it. Ryoga carefully outlined his, placing delicate dots for decoration on the tree and snowmen, and when he glanced over at Yuma, he couldn’t help but grin at Yuma’s cookies. Each one had a different number written on it, and from Ryoga’s hazy memory of which Numbers were which, Yuma had colored the cookies accordingly. A cookie cut out on the shape of a gingerbread man caught his eye; the number _32_ was written over dark blue and purple icing, with the kanji for _future_ on its head.

_Hope and the future._

He cleared his throat and pulled a gingerbread man-shaped cookie toward him along with the yellow frosting. “What are we going to do with all these cookies?”

Yuma glanced over all the cookies and let out a sigh. “We can’t eat all of these.”

Ryoga had seen Yuma eat an obscene amount of food before, and he didn’t see why this would be different. “Maybe we can give them to people?”

“Ah!” Yuma grinned and sat up straighter. “We can give them out when we go caroling tomorrow!” He started humming the annoying song about Santa’s conveniently red-nosed reindeer and Ryoga shook his head. Yuma didn’t see.

“Hey, Yuma…” Ryoga hesitated before holding out the cookie he had just decorated. “We can have a couple ourselves, though, right?”

Yuma paused in the middle of writing a number and stared at the proffered cookie.

There was the number _39_ with _hope_ written above it.

“You’re… the hope of many people,” Ryoga said quietly.

“Shark…” Yuma’s chin quivered for a moment before he took it. He smiled and reached for the cookie Ryoga had noticed earlier. “Here.” He looked down at his cookie again. “If I’m hope, and you’re the future, then…” He trailed off, looking embarrassed, and Ryoga felt a surge of relief wash through his body. Was Yuma trying to say something?

Unfortunately, the doorbell rang at that exact moment, so when Kotori came in and Yuma invited her to help with the cookies, he never finished what he was going to say.


	10. Caroling

Ryoga wanted to evaporate into a puddle in the middle of the sidewalk and never be seen by another soul for as long as he lived.

If it wasn’t bad enough that Yuma made him wear _the sweater_ in _public_ (not that it was a bad sweater, because it was very warm and still smelled like Yuma even though Ryoga wore it to bed the past two nights and let its soft scent of Yuma help him sleep – Rio had given him the most _smug and disgusting_ look when she found him brushing his teeth in the sweater the next morning – but wearing a purple sweater with an ornament knitted into it _in public_ was, well, probably not _cool_ ), he was now mumbling holiday songs under his breath to strangers while Yuma, Rio, and Kotori took it in turns to elbow him in the side to sing louder.

“Fa la la la la-”

Yuma nudged him.

“La la la,” Ryoga muttered.

The elderly couple at the door just beamed and accepted the cookies Yuma handed them and ruffled his hair and ruffled Ryoga’s hair – _I can’t believe this_ – and told them they were adorable in their matching sweaters as if Ryoga wasn’t a sixteen-year-old former delinquent with a semi-permanent frown on his face.

“We’ve gone to nine houses,” he complained as soon as they were waved off. “Are we done yet?”

Yuma peered into the bag with the cookies in it. “We still have enough for three more.”

“Can’t we just eat them ourselves?” Ryoga was almost pleading at this point. They’d accidentally gone to two of Rio and Ryoga’s classmates’ houses and the look on their faces when they saw cold, indifferent former bully Ryoga Kamishiro wearing a homemade sweater while singing a horribly butchered English version of _Frosty the Snowman_ had been quite enough excitement for his entire life and he’d had to give them a look that plainly said _if you say anything about this to a single person, you will find yourself in a forest fifty miles outside of town bound with tinsel_.

“I think we should do just one more and make it an even ten,” Rio piped up.

He glared at her, but Yuma was in agreement and so was Kotori and Ryoga could only breathe heavily through his nose and follow along, feet crunching through the snow.

They rang the doorbell of a random house a few blocks from Yuma’s place, and Ryoga had to cover his face to hide his embarrassment when Yuma’s former middle school teacher Mr. Ukyo opened the door.

There was an uncomfortable pause as he looked at them and they looked at him, and Ryoga locked eyes with him for a moment too long as he could tell that Ukyo was trying to figure out why Ryoga was at his door wearing a sweater that matched Yuma’s.

But then Yuma burst into a song that Ryoga was entirely unfamiliar with, and Kotori chimed in after a moment, and Ryoga exchanged a bewildered look with his sister, who, he was glad to see, was equally unfamiliar with the song.

When Yuma and Kotori finished what turned out to be a duet, Ukyo put his hands together for an awkward clap and they stood there in silence again for a minute.

“Um,” Ukyo said finally, “thank you for the, uh, song.”

Yuma pulled out a small bag of cookies. “Here you go!”

“Thank… you.”

Ukyo still didn’t close his door and continued staring between Yuma and Ryoga.

“Is something wrong?” Yuma asked.

The teacher coughed quietly into his hand. “No… just… glad to see you kids are finally together.”

He finally shut the door.

They stood on the porch for a minute, and Ryoga glanced at Yuma, who was frowning at Ukyo’s strange response, and the thought of what Ukyo had once said to Ryoga about Yuma’s _power like the sun_ and he wondered suddenly if Ukyo thought they were _together_.


	11. Winter Festival

“…and tomorrow there’s gonna be live music!”

The sun was finally shining as Ryoga walked behind Yuma through the crowded walkways between concession stands. It was still cold, and there was still ample snow on the ground, but they were supposed to have a good week of mild weather before more snow dumped on them. The winter festival was always something Ryoga and Rio went to together, but it was usually at Rio’s insistence and Ryoga very seldom had any fun there. But he was sure he could shake Rio and Kotori off and get in some time playing cheap carnival games with Yuma and eating the spiciest ramen he could find.

For a wonder, Rio seemed to notice (and acknowledge) what her brother wanted, and touched Kotori’s shoulder. “Kotori, would you like to go with me to find something to eat?”

Kotori agreed, excitedly chatting about octopus balls, leaving Ryoga and Yuma standing next to an ice-cream booth. Yuma tugged on Ryoga’s arm.

“Hey, Shark, let’s go watch the ice sculpting!”

It was a yearly tradition for some of the local artists to make ice sculptures, and it was always pretty interesting to see what they came up with, so Ryoga nodded and walked alongside Yuma, listening to him prattle about this or that (Ryoga wasn’t really listening to anything in particular outside of _if I could sculpt I’d make a huge ice sculpture of Hope!_ or _I’m really glad this gets us out of school for two days because I really don’t like biology_ ). Their hands brushed a little as they went, and he was tempted to lace their fingers together, but there was quite a difference between hand-holding for balance while ice skating and holding hands like a _couple_ would.

“Ooh!” Yuma pointed at one of the sculptures, which was a carefully crafted sculpture of what looked like Black Ray Lancer. “That’s your card!”

Ryoga approached it cautiously, careful not to disturb the sculptor. It was very well done, with the lance and armor perfectly carved and detailed. “This is really nice.”

The sculptor mumbled a thanks and went back to work, and Ryoga gently pulled Yuma away from it. “We should let him finish.”

Yuma nodded and linked his arm with Ryoga’s. “I remember when you first used that card against me,” he said fondly. “You beat me bad.”

“You should have been less intrusive.” Ryoga’s lips twitched despite his indifferent voice. He had been scared, back then. Scared to let someone get close to him, because everyone who got close to him ended up hurt, so he pushed Yuma away. He would never be able to hurt Yuma again, no matter what.

Yuma stuck out his tongue. “You’re mean.”

Ryoga couldn’t give into the smile this time and shifted his arm so his hand reached for Yuma’s.

“Can it be? Shaaaaaark?”

He sighed.

If there was anyone he was expecting _less_ to be trying to summon him, it was…

“Sanagi?”

 

_Oh no._

She grabbed his hand, pulling it away from Yuma, and his smile melted into a disapproving frown. _People need to not touch me when I don’t say they can._

“Shark!” she said, wringing his hand, “I’m such a fan!”

Ryoga distinctly heard Yuma mutter something like _Duel Carnival Champion_ but he couldn’t respond as Sanagi pulled herself closer to him. He leaned back.

“Would you do me the honor of joining my duel band for tomorrow’s live show?” she said in a rush, as though it was her life’s ambition to ask Ryoga Kamishiro to be her band buddy a second time.

_What?_

“Uh,” he said, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say when Yuma interrupted.

“That sounds so cool!” Yuma grinned. “What else do you play but piano?”

He regretted telling Yuma that. “Uh, the bass.”

“Awesooome!” Yuma was now hanging off his other arm. “I forgot about that! You’ll do it, right Shark?”

Between Yuma’s excited face and Sanagi’s anxious one, Ryoga sighed again. “Fine. What are we-”

Sanagi immediately launched into a list of songs they were going to sing and thrust a folder into his hands with the admonition that he not lose it and make sure to be ready for the next day. Without another word, she pranced off, leaving Ryoga staring dumbfounded at the music.

Yuma was talking about how cool it was that he got to be in a band with _Sanagi_ but all Ryoga could think about was the fact that he had to perform four love songs in public.


	12. Performance

Ryoga stared at his bass, not quite sure how he’d been convinced this was a good idea because it _wasn’t,_ it wasn’t even _close_. Sanagi was practicing her scales as she put on glitter and a pink hat with a cotton ball on the tip. She’d offered him a hat too, but he’d flat out refused; it was bad enough that he had to sing in front of people without the added bonus of wearing a cheap glittery Santa hat.

How embarrassing.

“Shaaaaark!” Sanagi tossed her glitter on the dressing room table and grabbed him by the forearm. “Are you ready?”

No.

“Whatever.”

She ignored his grimace and pulled him out of the tent, weaving through crowds of people flocking to the live show. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it was with anyone but _Sanagi_ , but she was one of the most popular icons in the entire country, so _of course_ there were going to be tons of people watching. Gilag, probably, and Alit, and maybe the other Barians, and Vector better not be-

But when Ryoga stood on that stage and the music started up and his fingers started dancing on the strings of their own accord-

-it didn’t feel quite as embarrassing, because Yuma was there, in the front next to Rio and Kotori and a couple of Yuma’s other friends, and he was smiling up at Ryoga, and Ryoga could pretend he was singing only to Yuma, no matter how cheesy and stupid and uncharacteristic of him the lyrics might have been.

He sang the lyrics with only a vague recollection of what he was actually _singing_ ; he didn’t care that people were pointing at him and nudging their neighbors, trying to figure out why _Shark is singing love songs with Sanagi_ , but that didn’t matter because she apparently had always been a fan of his while he had been a pro duelist.

Yuma didn’t whisper to his friends or make faces at him to try to throw him off, but he just looked up at the stage and _smiled_ , and it was _almost_ worth every embarrassing lyric.

 _Booster packs in the stocking_  
A new D-Gazer under the tree  
But let’s get people talking  
When under the mistletoe  
You’re kissing me


	13. He'll Be Comin' Down the Mountain

He was humming _that song_ for _some reason_ and it made Ryoga want to throw himself off the ski lift but he didn’t because Yuma didn’t _seem_ to mean anything by it. It was a kind of catchy song, but there were other songs that were catchier and probably more annoying for Yuma to pick from than the one about kissing under the mistletoe after opening booster packs.

(Who the hell wrote that song, anyway?)

Yuma took Ryoga by the hand as the lift approached the lodge and hopped off, pulling Ryoga with him. Ryoga had never been skiing. It seemed too dangerous for his taste, but that was probably why Yuma liked it; staring down the side of the mountain almost stopped Ryoga’s overworked heart.

“I don’t think-” he began, but whatever he didn’t think didn’t matter, because Yuma gave him a small push and they stated off down the slope.

Ryoga bent his knees and threw his ski poles out to the side to keep his balance, and if he started going too fast, maybe he could just fall back and sit in the snow and hike back up the mountain or something, but Yuma laughed at the sight of him squatting on his skis, and probably laughed harder when Ryoga tumbled over face-first into the snow.

With a heavy sigh, he sat up and brushed the snow from his hair, and Yuma was there all of a sudden, and he reached out and started brushing the snow off Ryoga’s shoulders and cheeks, and Ryoga attempted to scowl.

“What are you doing?”

“You, uh, are pretty bad at this…” Yuma didn’t bother concealing his grin.

“I’ve never done it before,” Ryoga grumbled.

Yuma held out his hand. “I can show you. You showed me how to ice skate, so I’ll show you how to ski.”

It was like something out of a damn Disney movie; he took Yuma’s hand and Yuma pulled him to his feet, except he pulled too hard (accidentally? on purpose? who knew, with Yuma?) and ended up being pulled into Yuma’s arms, pressed against Yuma’s sleek blazer.

It was a very, very long ten seconds as Ryoga pulled away at arm’s length and they just _stared_ at each other and if this _was_ a damn Disney movie there would probably be a musical number right about now and Ryoga had done quite enough singing for one year as it was.

Yuma finally looked down, corners of his mouth twitching. “Um, Shark…”

“Yeah?”

Maybe this wasn’t the _best_ place, on this snowy slope with people blowing right by every so often, but surely _no one they knew was there_ and-

“You’re stepping on my foot.”

There was probably not a person in any conceivable parallel world with worse luck than him this month.


	14. Hot Spring

The ski lodge was famous for being a gateway to some of the best hot springs in the country. After a long two days of skiing on the increasingly cold mountain, falling down, running into trail markers, sliding face-first into snowdrifts, and twice hitting a tree, Ryoga was looking forward to a nice hot bath to soothe his aching, cold, stiff muscles.

There was hardly anyone there when he and Yuma arrived, much to his surprise, but maybe people were still getting dinner. It was pretty early in the evening, and Yuma and Ryoga had taken an early dinner.

It was _cold_ , Ryoga realized as he pulled off his blazer in preparation to climb into the spring. It wasn’t going to be much fun climbing back out when they were done with their bath. He certainly wasn’t going to be completely unclothed. Not in public.

“Kattobingu da, ore!”

Yuma practically cannonballed into the spring and from the brief glimpse Ryoga had caught as Yuma had flown by, Yuma obviously had less sense of decency than Ryoga did. But Yuma didn’t care; he popped up and _ahh_ ed contentedly, floating back in the water, and Ryoga pointedly stared anywhere but at Yuma.

“Hurry up, Shark!” Yuma said with a bright smile, as though he couldn’t see Ryoga’s clearly tomato-red face. “You’re gonna catch a cold standing out there without a coat on.”

Ryoga closed his eyes and stripped down to his briefs, carefully folding his clothes next to the spring. He stuck a tentative foot in the water. It felt every bit as good on his cold skin as he’d hoped, so he slid into the water next to Yuma, who had finally decided not to float on his back anymore. It felt _heavenly_ ; he never wanted to get out. Every aching muscle, every sore spot on his body relaxed, and the tension melted out of his neck and shoulders as he leaned back against the rocks.

Yuma glanced down. “Shark, are you embarrassed about bathing in public or something?”

Was it possible for Ryoga’s face to be any redder? He wasn’t sure. “Don’t concern yourself with that,” he said stiffly, shifting his body away from Yuma.

Being mostly naked with a totally naked Yuma, alone in a hot spring, did not make Ryoga feel terribly comfortable.

There was a short pause, and the water rippled as Yuma scooted closer. Ryoga resisted the temptation to put his head under the water and never resurface. “Can I wash your back for you?”

_What._

“Please?”

Ryoga pulled his legs closer. He was pretty sure no matter what he said that Yuma would try to do it anyway. “I… guess.”

Yuma took a cloth and rubbed it gently across Ryoga’s back. “Dad and I used to go to hot springs together,” he said as he went. “He used to wash my back. It was a…” Yuma’s hand paused and Ryoga turned his head to see Yuma’s brows furrowed, his eyes sad.

“Yuma,” he began quietly, but Yuma laughed.

“He said it’s what men do!” Yuma went on, and his face brightened again.

 _What, wash each other’s backs?_ But Ryoga didn’t press it.

They stayed in the spring for maybe an hour, and Ryoga was starting to get a bit lightheaded from the heat, so Yuma climbed out first. Ryoga turned away again as Yuma toweled off in record time, shivering and dancing from foot to foot, before pulling his clothes back on. Ryoga was next, and _by god it is so cold_ but he dried off best he could and pulled his own clothes back on. The ends of his hair froze – he could actually _see_ the ice crystals forming on them – and he hoped he wouldn’t get sick.


	15. Winter Sniffles

It wasn’t even bad enough to warrant being in the hospital but _Rio wanted to make sure he didn’t have pneumonia_ so he wound up getting about three chest x-rays and four nurses who all seemed to think he needed to breathe for them while they checked to see if his lungs were rattling or something.

He was _fine_ ; it was a cold, just a stupid cold, brought on by being outside and having his body temperature go from borderline hyperthermia to borderline hypothermia in a matter of minutes, and he’d get over it if all he had was some soup and a comfy bed with soft blankets and-

“Shark, you need to eat all your potatoes.”

He sighed.

Yuma was keeping him company, because despite his insistence that _I’m not going to die, it’s just a goddamn cold_ the nurses all decided he should stay the night because _the x-rays are a bit blurry and it might be more serious than you think_ (how the fuck were the x-rays _blurry_ in the first place). It was getting close to the end of visiting hours, but Yuma was hanging out by his bedside, healthy as could be for some reason, reading articles out of a year-old _Duelists Quarterly_ that he had found somewhere (probably stole it from the waiting room).

“They’re too watery.”

“Fine, I’ll eat them.” Yuma leaned over and pulled the tray toward him, where Ryoga had picked at the dry pork roast and deliberately shoved the onions as far away from everything as possible. “No sense letting perfectly good potatoes go to- no, wait, you’re right, these are really watery.” He spared a glance at Ryoga, who wiped his runny nose with his shirtsleeve, and tilted his head. “Something wrong?”

With an obvious roll of his eyes, Ryoga glanced back at Yuma. “I’m trapped in the hospital again, and when visiting hours are over, I’m going to be bored out of my damn mind, so what do you think?” He sneezed, and Yuma passed him the box of tissues on the table next to him.

“What if I didn’t leave?” Yuma grinned mischievously, and Ryoga blew his nose.

“How the hell are you-”

Yuma just winked at him and set the tray to the side. “Be right back.”

Ryoga watched him exit the room and rubbed his eyes. He had no idea what Yuma was planning on doing, but he figured Yuma probably just got sidetracked and/or caught on the way doing whatever it is he was doing, so when the nurse came in to take his tray and give him an obscenely high dosage of antibiotics with the promise that he could be home by tomorrow morning, Ryoga decided he might actually try to get some sleep.

Almost as soon as the nurse closed the door, his window opened, and a gust of cold air preceded Yuma clambering inside.

_What the actual hell._

“Yuma,” he hissed, sitting up. “What are you doing?”

Yuma closed the window and gave a little shiver. “Keeping you company tonight, Shark. What else?” He smiled and Ryoga scowled.

“Where are you planning on sleeping, exactly?” he demanded in a quiet voice so as not to attract attention from the nurses in the hall.

Yuma’s eyes trailed over the room and he frowned. This particular room was quite small, and therefore only merited one bed.

_Oh my god, he’s not actually going to-_

He was.

Ryoga froze as Yuma climbed into the bed next to him and pulled the sheets over them. Yuma was cold and Ryoga’s first instinct was to shove him away – _you idiot, you’re going to get us caught and they’re going to ask awkward questions and this is going to be really awkward in general because he’s… oh god he’s touching me, he’s actually… he’s actually laying on me_ – and Ryoga had to close his eyes and pretend when he opened them it wasn’t actually happening.

But it was.

Yuma curled up next to him for warmth, for comfort, for… whose comfort, exactly, because it wasn’t Ryoga’s, or maybe…

Maybe it was.

It wasn’t _bad_. It was really, really nice, actually, and-

“Yuma, if they catch you in here, we’re going to get in so much trouble,” Ryoga grumbled, but he let his hands tighten around Yuma’s shoulders as he pulled him closer and tried not to drip snot in his hair.

“Mmm.” Yuma gave a quiet laugh. “I hope you don’t get me sick, Shark.”

“Idiot, you’re the one who pretended he was leaving and climbed in through the window.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“There’s no _guess_ about it.”

Yuma looked up at him. “You don’t… mind, right, Shark?”

Ryoga glanced at him. Of course he didn’t. “How could I mind-”

He got as far as that before the door opened and Yuma froze and Ryoga froze and they both looked at the door and the nurse in the door froze and looked at them and then they found themselves sitting on opposite sides of the bed being yelled at for _irresponsibility_ and _it’s past hours_ and _what were you doing anyway_ and Ryoga dabbed at his nose with a tissue and was at least glad that modern medicine could do away with the worst of a cold in just a day so he could get out of here and maybe cuddle with Yuma somewhere else.


	16. How The Barian King Stole Christmas

“Hey Shark,” Yuma began, and Ryoga looked up from his book. “Do you have a favorite holiday story?”

Ryoga shrugged and returned to his book. “Not particularly.”

Yuma scooted closer to Ryoga on the couch and held up a picture book. “I really like _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_. Have you ever read it?”

_Probably a long time ago, when my parents were still alive, but I can hardly remember those days._ “No.”

With a grin, Yuma leaned his head on Ryoga’s shoulder. “Want to read it to me?”

Ryoga snapped his book shut and frowned at Yuma. “You’re old enough to read it yourself.”

The grin on Yuma’s face didn’t quite disappear through his attempted pout. “C’mon, Shark. I rewrote some of it. Please?”

It felt like Ryoga had done nothing all day but sigh, but he couldn’t say no. “Fine. Give it here.” Yuma made a noise of delight and pulled closer as Ryoga opened it and began to read.

_Every Duelist down in Heartland liked Christmas a lot_

_But the Barian King, who lived just north of Heartland in a big fancy mansion, did NOT!_

“Yuma-” Ryoga said, giving Yuma a deadpan stare, “did you make me the Grinch of this story?”

Yuma shushed him and urged him to keep reading. Feeling like this whole story was going to be a disaster, Ryoga continued.

_The Barian hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!_

_Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason._

_It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right._

_It could be, perhaps, that his D-Gazer was too slight-_

"Yuma, we didn't even use D-Gazers."

"Shark, you're ruining the mood."

_But I think the most likely reason of all,_

_May have been that he was the King of the Barians, and had no-_

“Yuma.”

“Don’t interrupt.”

_-and had no heart at all._

_Whatever the reason, his heart or his D-Gazer,_

_He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the players,_

_Staring down from his mansion with a sour, Barian frown,_

_At the warm lighted windows below in their town._

_For he knew every Duelist down in Heartland beneath,_

_Was busy now, hanging a mistletoe wreath._

_“And they’re hanging their stockings!” he snarled with a sneer,_

_“Tomorrow is Christmas! It’s practically here!”_

_Then he growled, with his Barian fingers nervously drumming,_

_“I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming!”_

_For Tomorrow, he knew, all the impressionable young duelists,_

_Would wake bright and early. They'd rush for their duel disks!_

_And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!_

_Noise! Noise! Noise!_

_That's one thing he hated! The NOISE!_

_NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!_

_Then the duelists, young and old, would sit down to a feast._

_And they'd feast! And they'd feast! And they'd FEAST!_

_FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!_

_They would feast on duelist-pudding, and rare duelist-roast beast._

_Which was something the Barian couldn't stand in the least!_

_And THEN they'd do something He liked least of all!_

_Every Duelist down in Heartland, the tall and the small,_

_Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing._

_They'd stand across from each other. And the Duelists would start Dueling!_

_They'd duel! And they'd duel! And they'd DUEL!_

_DUEL! DUEL! DUEL!_

_And the more the Barian thought of this Heartland Dueling,_

_The more the Barian thought, "I must stop this whole thing!"_

_"Why, for five hundred years I've put up with it now!"_

_"I MUST stop this Christmas from coming! But HOW?"_

_Then he got an idea! An awful idea!_

_THE BARIAN GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!_

_"I know just what to do!" The Barian laughed in his throat._

_And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat._

_And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great Barian trick!"_

_"With this coat and this hat, I look just like Saint Nick!"_

_"All I need is a reindeer..." The Barian looked around._

_But, since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found._

_Did that stop the old Barian? No! The Barian simply said,_

_"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"_

_So he called his dog, Vector. Then he took some red thread,_

_And he tied a big horn on the top of his head._

_THEN He loaded some bags And some old empty sacks,_

_On a ramshackle sleigh And he hitched up angry old Vector._

_Then the Barian said, "Giddap!" And the sleigh started yonder,_

_Toward the homes where the Duelists lay asnooze in their town._

_All their windows were dark. Quiet snow filled the air._

_All the Duelists were all dreaming sweet dreams without care._

_When he came to the first little house on the square._

_"This is stop number one," the old Barian Claus hissed,_

_And he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist._

_Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch._

_But, if Santa could do it, then so could the Barian._

_He got stuck only once, for a moment or two._

_Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue._

_Where the little Duelist stockings all hung in a row._

_"These stockings," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"_

_Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,_

_Around the whole room, and he took every present!_

_D-Gazers! And motorcycles! D-Pads! Booster packs-_

“Yuma, how many parents give their children a motorcycle for Christmas?”

“You have one, don’t you?”

“I didn’t get it from my parents.”

“Shh.”

_-Xyz monsters! O-Bots! Numbers! And duel mats!_

_And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Barian, very nimbly,_

_Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney!_

_Then he slunk to the fridge. He took the Duel feast!_

_He took the Duel-pudding! He took the roast beast!_

_He cleaned out that fridge as quick as a flash._

_Why, that Barian even took their last can of Duel-hash!_

_Then he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee._

_"And NOW!" grinned the Barian, "I will stuff up the tree!"_

_And the Barian grabbed the tree, and he started to shove,_

_When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove._

_He turned around fast, and he heard a little yell!_

_Little Duelist Yuma, who was not more than twelve-_

“Are you serious?”

“Shark, just finish reading it.”

_-The Barian had been caught by this tiny Duelist teen,_

_Who'd got out of bed for a cup of hot tea._

_He stared at the Barian and said, "Santy Claus, why,”_

_"Why are you taking our Christmas tree? WHY?"_

_But, you know, that old Barian was so smart and so slick,_

_He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!_

_"Why, my sweet little tot," the fake Santy Claus lied,_

_"There's a light on this tree that won't light on one side."_

_"So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear."_

_"I'll fix it up there. Then I'll bring it back here."_

_And his fib fooled the child. Then he patted his head,_

_And he got him a drink and he sent him to bed._

_And when little Yuma went to bed with his cup,_

_HE went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!_

_Then the last thing he took was the log for their fire!_

_Then he went up the chimney, himself, the old liar._

_On their walls he left nothing but hooks and some wire._

_And the one speck of food that he left in the house,_

_Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse._

_Then He did the same thing to the other Duelists’ houses_

_Leaving crumbs much too small For the other Duelists’ mouses!_

_It was quarter past dawn... All the Duelists, still a-bed,_

_All the Duelists, still asnooze when he packed up his sled,_

_Packed it up with their presents! The ribbons! The wrappings!_

_The tags! And the tinsel! The trimmings! The trappings!_

_Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mt. Barian,_

_He rode with his load to the tiptop to dump what he was carryin’,_

_"Sucks to be the Duelists!" he was Barianingly humming._

_"They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!"_

_"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!"_

_"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,_

_Then the Duelists down in Heartland will all cry BooHoo!"_

_"That's a noise," grinned the Barian, "That I simply MUST hear!"_

_So he paused. And the Barian put his hand to his ear._

_And he did hear a sound rising over the snow._

_It started in low. Then it started to grow._

_But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!_

_It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!_

_He stared down at Heartland! The Barian popped his eyes!_

_Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!_

_Every Duelist down in Heartland, the tall and the small,_

_Was dueling! Without any presents at all!_

_He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!_

_Somehow or other, it came just the same!_

_And the Barian, with his rock-feet ice-cold in the snow,_

_Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"_

_"It came without ribbons! It came without tags!"_

_"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"_

_And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore._

_Then the Barian thought of something he hadn't before!_

_"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."_

_"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"_

_And what happened then? Well...in Heartland they say,_

_That the Barian actually grew a heart that day!_

_And the minute his new heart didn't feel quite so tight,_

_He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light,_

_And he brought back the decks! And the food for the feast!_

_And he, HE HIMSELF! The Barian carved the roast beast!_

“I can’t believe this.”

“Did you like it?”

Yuma was smiling, so sincerely that Ryoga couldn’t be indignant that Yuma had bothered to rewrite this entire story to make it… what? Relevant?

But Ryoga didn’t want to argue about them right now, not when Yuma seemed so… content.

“You rewrote this whole thing for me?” He smiled at Yuma, who was… really close to him again

_(how does he keep getting this close to me without me noticing)_

and Yuma smiled back, and they looked at each other for a long moment before the front door opened and Obomi announced herself with a loud _I’m home, dumbass_ and Yuma pulled back, because if Obomi was home that meant Yuma’s grandmother couldn’t be far behind.

But Yuma wasn’t quite done, and when his grandmother went into the kitchen, Yuma gave Ryoga a quick hug around the waist and whispered

_Then little Duelist Yuma embraced the Barian for a long time,_

_And finally said “I’m your friend now, and I hope that you’re mine.”_


	17. Snowball Fight

He was really sure – like, ninety-seven percent sure – that the snow was never going to melt and that it would never be warm again outside, but Yuma wanted to go to the park and have a _snowball fight_ (because _that_ sounded like a fun time, being pelted with cold, wet, hard-packed ice crystals) and since Ryoga had spent almost every waking hour with Yuma for the past two weeks, he begrudgingly accompanied him.

No one was at the park when they arrived, and Ryoga’s hands were cold through the gloves and the hems of his pants were soaked thoroughly, but Yuma plopped in the snow and started packing it into a wall.

“What are you doing?” Ryoga asked, hands in his pockets.

“Making a fort, of course!” Yuma said as though that had any meaning to Ryoga.

“A fort for what?”

Yuma gave him a pained look that clearly said _isn’t it obvious, Shark_ but answered anyway. “For the fight.”

Ryoga glanced around the deserted park. “Fight with who?”

“Could you make a few snowballs and put them behind here for me?” Yuma was too engrossed in his task to bother answering, so Ryoga sighed and bent down to pack a snowball, only to realize that he had no idea how to do so.

Yuma glanced up from his fort-building and cast a concerned glance at the lopsided snowballs Ryoga was piling by the wall. “Shark, what are those?”

He felt a bit put-off by the question. “Snowballs.”

They looked at each other and Yuma scrunched his nose. “Um, that’s… not really a snowball, Shark.” He picked one up. “It looks more like a snow _egg_.”

Ryoga picked one up and smooshed it into Yuma’s face.

Yuma sat there for a second before leaning forward, snatching a handful of snow, and grabbed Ryoga by the scarf. “I can’t believe you’d do that to me, Shark.”

“You shouldn’t insult my-”

He cut off with an undignified scream as Yuma shoved the snowball down the front of Ryoga’s shirt.

 _GOD_ was it cold.

Ryoga frantically untucked his shirt and shook it to get the snowball out. “Yuma, what the hell!”

But Yuma was shaking with laughter, so Ryoga did the only sensible thing to be done in such a situation, and leaned forward to return the favor.

The laughter didn’t completely leave Yuma’s face, but his eyes widened as he whispered “revenge only begets more revenge,” which caught Ryoga so off-guard that he burst out laughing himself and ended up falling into the snow next to him.

There was snow packed into his hair, just as there was snow packed into Yuma’s, and it was cold and wet and uncomfortable but it was hardly a bad moment-

-until a hard-packed ball of cold, wet, hard-packed ice crystals hit him in the face and  as he brushed his face off, he looked over to see Tokunosuke and the class rep looking mortified because he was reasonably sure whoever had thrown the snowball had meant to hit Yuma instead of him, but either way, they were going to beg his forgiveness on their knees.

“Revenge only begets more revenge!” Yuma called after him again, but this time it was through his laughter, and Ryoga felt a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.


	18. Nutcracker

Yuma tugged at his bowtie and shifted nervously from one foot to the other as they stood in line to get into the ballet. He had never been to anything fancier than a school play; Ryoga, on the other hand, had been to several ballets and operas before his parents died.

“Shark, how long is this thing?”

Ryoga turned to Yuma and gently pulled his hands from the bowtie. “A couple of hours. Try to be still, would you?”

“I can’t sit still for a couple of _hours_ ,” Yuma whined as Ryoga straightened Yuma’s bowtie again. “I can barely sit through a fifty minute class.”

“Just try,” Ryoga murmured, pulling the tickets from the inside of his suit coat pocket. “I think you might enjoy some of it.”

He handed over the tickets and escorted Yuma to their seats near the middle of the theater. Yuma looked around at the thousands of seats, at the high balcony seats, and at the heavy curtain covering the stage. It was one of the oldest buildings near Heartland City, a performance hall built nearly a hundred years ago, but it was exactly the same as Ryoga remembered it from the last time he had been there, seven years ago.

His parents had taken him and Rio to see this very performance of _The Nutcracker_. Ryoga barely remembered any of it. The memories of what happened on the drive home were far more prevalent.

Yuma looked up at him, brows furrowed in concern, and Ryoga felt Yuma’s warm hand squeeze his as they sat. “Shark?”

Ryoga forced a small smile. “Sorry, it’s… been a while since I last came here.”

“Nostalgia?” Yuma asked over the tuning of the orchestra from the pit.

 _Some kind of nostalgia._ “A bit.”

They sat in silence for the next five minutes until the lights dimmed and the ballet’s manager came on stage to announce the evening’s performance. Yuma squirmed a bit in his seat, from excitement, maybe, and the overdressed lady on his other side cast the pair of them a dirty look.

 _I might have grown up to be like that_ , he thought glumly. _Haughty and rich and conceited…_ But that would be an embarrassment to the Kamishiro name. His parents were nothing like that. They were generous, and donated a lot of money to the performing arts. Had his parents lived, would he ever have met Yuma?

The orchestra started up and the curtain parted to applause, and Yuma looked around. “It hasn’t even started yet,” he whispered. “Why’s everyone clapping?”

Ryoga fought back a laugh and shook his head. “Just watch,” he whispered back.

The ballet was every bit as beautiful as he’d remembered; the music was full of passion, the ballerinas performed every jump, every swoon, every aspect of the childish enthusiasm with perfection. When Fritz broke the nutcracker, Yuma leaned over and whispered “what a jerk.”

The lady cast another glare their way and Ryoga gave her a stoic lift of the eyebrow in return.

The fight between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker seemed to excite Yuma; he sat up straighter and silently pumped his fists to cheer on the Nutcracker and Ryoga was sure the woman was going to give them a hell of a talking to at intermission.

When the Nutcracker transformed into the Prince and led her through the glittering forest, Yuma leaned his head on Ryoga’s shoulder. “That’s really pretty.”

“Yeah,” Ryoga said in the quietest voice he could muster.

The first act ended, and Yuma seemed to be enjoying himself, but Ryoga could see the way Yuma was squeezing his thighs together, so when the curtain fell, he offered to show Yuma where the bathroom was, and they left before the woman could scold them for being disruptive. On the way there, Yuma smiled at him. “This is actually pretty cool. I thought it would be boring high class stuff.”

Ryoga gave him a gentle nudge. “Not everything that’s _high class_ has to be boring, you know.”

“Yeah? What about golf?”

They bickered the whole way to the bathroom, but Yuma was having a good time, and that was all Ryoga cared about.

The second act began and Yuma seemed a bit confused, because he kept asking questions in an undertone – _what country is that supposed to be, why are they still dancing, are those children under that lady’s dress_ – but the woman hushed him and Yuma, looking abashed, fell silent. Halfway through the _Waltz of the Sugar Plum Fairy_ , Yuma’s head lolled on Ryoga’s shoulder, and Yuma’s soft breathing told Ryoga that Yuma had fallen asleep.

Ryoga had fallen asleep on his mother’s lap that night, too.

When it ended, Yuma opened his bleary eyes as everyone started to applaud, and he yawned. “Is it over already?”

“Yuma, you slept through half of it.”

“Oh.”

They stood with everyone else and applauded, and Yuma smiled as he leaned his head on Ryoga’s shoulder again.

“Thanks for bringing me. It was really nice. Well,” Yuma added with a laugh, “what I was awake for.”

When the applause died down and everyone was gathering their coats and bags, the lady next to Yuma started in on how _little boys shouldn’t come to things like this unattended because they’re noisy and rude and_ Ryoga stopped listening and grabbed Yuma’s hand, pulling him into the throng of people heading up the aisle.

He missed his parents every day, sometimes more than he would ever admit, but at least he would never end up like that lady, and at least he had Yuma now.


	19. Do You Want To Build A Snowman?

Ryoga paused by the entrance to the yard and frowned at Yuma, who was in the process of possibly making an extremely large snowball. But it didn’t really make a lot of sense, because he was rolling it and clearly couldn’t lift it, so what was the point?

Nearby, a scarf, a strange headdress of some kind, a carrot, and several buttons of varied sizes lay on the ground. Ryoga eyed them bewilderedly for a moment and finally announced his presence.

Yuma turned and grinned. “Hey! Just in time, Shark!”

 _Just in time for what?_ Ryoga wondered with some trepidation, but Yuma grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him over to the huge snowball-

- _oh, wait._

Now that he put the pieces together, he could see that Yuma was building a snowman (something Ryoga hadn’t done since he was maybe six) and he was going to be roped into it too.

“This one is the butt,” Yuma explained, pointing at the big one, “and this one is the body. I haven’t made the head yet.”

Ryoga shoved his hands in his pockets, watching as Yuma rolled a much smaller ball on the other side of the yard. He contemplated picking up the body and placing it on the _butt_ and remembered how every chunk of snow he tried to pick up when they’d had their snowball fight had crumbled at his touch, so on second thought…

Yuma came over again and put his hands on his hips as he appraised the body. “I think I made it too big. Can you help me lift it?”

“Uh…”

He didn’t have the heart to tell Yuma that it would probably disintegrate in his hands, and who knew? Maybe it wouldn’t.

“Make sure to bend from the knees!” Yuma chimed in as they bent down.

“Yeah, yeah…”

They lifted it, and Ryoga felt small chunks of snow crunch and fall off. He grimaced, but Yuma didn’t say anything; his face was screwed up in concentration and he was doing that cute tongue thing again _damn it stop doing that-_

They plopped the body on the lower ball and Yuma packed it together as Ryoga held it in place. It surprisingly stayed very well, though Yuma frowned at the few chunks of it that had fallen off on Ryoga’s side before he bent down and packed some more snow in place.

“Hey Shark, can you give me the head?”

Ryoga had to filter this question through his mind in a blind panic for about two seconds before he realized what Yuma had actually asked – _he wants the snowman’s head to put on the body you moron –_ and even then he felt apprehensive. The body had fallen apart a bit on him; what if the head did too?

But to his surprise, when he bent down to pick it up, it didn’t. It stayed perfectly intact as they put it on the snowman’s body, and they both stepped back to look at the incomplete snowman.

It was a little lopsided and top-heavy, but Yuma beamed at it and Ryoga smiled at Yuma.

The scarf went on first, then the eyes, mouth, the carrot nose, and the buttons. Finally, all that was left was the… bizarre headdress.

“Yuma, what is this?” Ryoga wondered, picking it up and turning it around in his hands. It looked ancient, and very much foreign, kind of like… the stuff in Yuma’s attic room. “Is this something your dad picked up?”

“Yeah.” Yuma gently lifted it from Ryoga’s hands. “Dad said it possesses the spirit of an ancient Mayan emperor.”

Ryoga eyed it. “And you’re using for a snowman’s hat… why?”

“Haven’t you ever seen _Frosty the Snowman_?”

He'd sung the song when they went caroling but paid no attention to any of the words because he had been too distressed. “No.”

Yuma launched into a song and Ryoga’s face turned red from the secondhand embarrassment as Yuma sang about a snowman who came to life from a silk top hat that some children put on his head, and Ryoga wasn’t necessarily superstitious, but the idea of putting a cursed Mayan headdress on the snowman to invoke its spirit and bring it to life through a snowman sounded like a very, very bad idea.

“Yuma, I don’t think we should be-”

Yuma wasn’t listening, and the headdress had almost touched the snowman’s head when there was an anguished yell from the entrance to the yard and a short old man sprinted with surprising speed into the yard, tapping Yuma’s head with a walking stick while yelling for Yuma to _stop trying to invoke the angry dead spirits, Yuma!_ and Yuma just whined _stop hitting me, old man!_ and Ryoga sighed again.

Part of him was curious about what would have happened but the other part of him was very glad they _didn’t_ summon the spirit of a fifteen hundred year old emperor.


	20. Holiday Movie Marathon

Ryoga rubbed his eyes. They’d been watching the _Frosty the Snowman_ movie for the past forty minutes; it was terrible and ridiculous but Yuma insisted on it because _you haven’t seen it and everyone should watch it at least once in their life!_ so Ryoga did and he was glad he could at least say that he watched _Frosty the Snowman_ at least once in his life. (It did however answer the question of what song Yuma and Kotori had been singing when they’d gone caroling at Ukyo’s house.)

“Why did he say _happy birthday_?” Ryoga grumbled at one point, and Yuma frowned.

“Maybe it’s because it was the day he was born?” Yuma suggested after a minute. “Shh, just watch.”

Ryoga rolled his eyes and leaned his head back on the sofa as they watched Frosty get up to all sorts of shenanigans with those kids who stole that guy’s hat (seriously, he had every right to have his hat back) and when it was over, he let out a quiet sigh of relief.

“Did you like it?” Yuma asked eagerly.

“Uh…” Ryoga grimaced. “Not particularly.”

Yuma pouted. “Well, what’s your favorite holiday movie, Shark?”

He didn’t have one. He and Rio hardly watched television, and all of the supposedly _heartwarming holiday films_ about people being reunited with family served to do nothing but make him angry. “I don’t have one.”

Yuma’s mouth fell open as though Ryoga had just insulted his deck. “What? You don’t _have one_?” Yuma bounced off the couch and picked up a pile of discs. “Well, we should just watch them all until you do have one!”

Ryoga opened his mouth to argue, but there was no point because Yuma had already popped in a disc, so he had to sit through _Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer_ , some movie about a bald kid named Charlie Brown _, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,_ and by the time Yuma was prepping to put in _The Polar Express_ , Ryoga almost just told Yuma that he really enjoyed one of the others so he didn’t have to put up with this anymore. Yuma was having a good time, though, and the couch was at least comfortable and the spicy chicken and rice Yuma’s grandmother had set aside for their dinner was delicious, and they’d already gone an entire afternoon alone, so Ryoga let him pop in the movie and tried suavely to wrap his arm around Yuma and pull him close-

“What is the purpose of the bell?”

He changed direction at the last second and awkwardly threw his arm over the back of the sofa instead.

“If you believe in Santa, you can hear it ringing!” Yuma said, oblivious to Ryoga’s bizarre positioning as he turned to Astral, who had popped up yet again at an inopportune time.

Astral’s lips pursed. “I thought Santa was just Kaito in a red suit and a large fake beard.”

Ryoga bit his lip to keep a straight face while Yuma and Astral argued about whether Santa was a creepy slave driver who spied on children or a jolly, charitable icon of goodwill and peace.


	21. Sleigh Bells Ring

Each year, Heartland City decked out the entire downtown district in flashing lights and decorations, filled the streets with fake snow, and offered guided sleigh rides around to see the attractions for those who didn’t feel up to walking. It was the most beautiful way to enjoy snow – not walking in it and nobody driving in it to turn it into disgusting grey slush – so Ryoga offered to take Yuma with him.

The sleighs were big enough for four, so Kotori and Rio sat across from them. Fortunately, the girls were too preoccupied with the decorations and the (rather annoying) jazzy music from the city’s loudspeakers to really give too much attention to what the boys were talking about, so Ryoga sat patiently while Yuma pointed out different light formations and gushed about how _it looks like such-and-such monster_ even when Ryoga was reasonably sure it was just an outline of a reindeer and not Genome Heralder. (Not that the Number was particularly festive, or had any implications of positivity at all whatsoever in Ryoga’s mind.)

Yuma was getting closer and closer with each street they went down, until his thigh was touching Ryoga’s, and Ryoga could feel Yuma’s warm breaths on his neck as Yuma leaned close to point out some flashy billboard or another.

It was very distracting.

The sleigh driver made to turn a corner, except a person was walking in the clearly marked “no pedestrians” zone, and the driver had to yank on the reigns to keep the horses from mowing him over.

The driver yelled at the pedestrian, but all Ryoga noticed was Yuma tumbling on top of him, faces so close that Ryoga was afraid to open his mouth to speak because he thought it might accidentally brush their lips together and now that the situation presented itself to him _he was so not ready for it to happen yet_ and he started to panic inwardly, wondering what to do.

_(should I go for it, no, it’s not the right time, not in front of Rio and Kotori and oh god I wonder if they’re looking at us but I can’t move my head because it’ll push his nose into mine I don’t care if it’s a cute nose – it’s a cute nose, oh god – I’m not ready for this right here, please get off of me, Yuma.)_

After an eternity that was only five seconds apparently, Yuma pulled himself off of Ryoga with an abashed _sorry, Shark_ and he turned his head to the opposite side, where he watched the lights in silence for the first time since they’d started this ride.

Ryoga caught his sister staring at him with a grimace on her face, and when he mouthed _what_ she mouthed something that looked like _are you ever gonna do it with him_ and Ryoga mouthed _he’s fifteen, Rio_ and she gave him a look of confused disbelief so maybe that’s not what she said so he just turned his head to the other side and scowled.


	22. Shopping

Waiting until three days before Christmas to buy gifts may not have been the smartest thing Yuma had ever done, but it certainly wasn’t atypical of him.

With a frantic glance at the calendar, he had wailed that he _still hasn’t bought everyone a present_ and the thought of shopping on his own sounded scary, so he coerced Ryoga into going (which in retrospect was probably a good thing, because he still hadn’t bought a present for either Yuma or Rio).

Every store was having some kind of last-minute sale for last-minute procrastinating shoppers, and Yuma went into almost every one of them, finally coming up with a cat-ear headband for Cathy, a magic trick kit for Tokunosuke, elbow pads for Tetsuo, a new planner for the class rep, chocolates and a new hair ribbon for Kotori, and he finally sat on a bench outside of a jewelry shop, sighing heavily, as he whined about how he had no idea what to get _Shark’s sis_.

Ryoga scrunched up his nose. “You shouldn’t call her that. It drives her nuts.”

Yuma wasn’t listening. “Does she like jewelry? Or, like, video games or-or-or makeup or-”

He cut off as Ryoga touched his hand gently. “Yuma, you could get her anything and I think she would appreciate it.”

“Are you sure?” Yuma didn’t seem convinced.

“Positive. I’m her brother, after all.”

(Okay, so maybe if _Ryoga_ bought her anything at all she’d give him a skeptical look but this was Yuma and it was impossible not to appreciate any gifts from Yuma.)

Yuma bounded to his feet. “Okay! I’m going to buy her a necklace.” He paused as he was about to enter the shop. “Um, Shark, I just remembered that I needed to get Obomi a new broom, so can I ask if you’d go get one for me? Here’s the money…”

The home improvement shop was at the back of the third floor, and they were on the first, but Ryoga sighed and headed off.

But maybe this was the perfect chance. He had two presents to buy (he’d already wrapped a bakeware set for Yuma’s grandmother as thanks for always being so hospitable) and no idea what to get either, but as he walked through the mall, up the escalator, and by shops with literally anything you could ever want to buy and even things you never knew existed, he decided on a new party dress for Rio (hopefully Yuma would pick out a nice necklace in a complimentary color) but for the life of him, he didn’t know what to get-

He stopped abruptly and glanced back at one of the stores, the perfect gift forming in his mind, and he hoped to every god that had ever been worshipped on the face of the planet that Yuma wouldn’t think it was weird. He’d tried for, what, _three weeks_ to tell Yuma _hey I think I care about you more than I probably should-_

No, that sounded stupid.

_I like holding your hand even if I’m deathly afraid of what people would say if they saw our fingers laced together._

_Your smile is like the sun._

_I just want to kiss you but that might make things weird between us and I don’t want that, so is it okay if I kiss you or…_

(The one about the spell card was too stupid even to bear repeating in his own head.)

At least he had a couple of days to figure it out before they exchanged gifts, and even though asking Rio for help with his nonexistent love life was about as appealing as getting a cavity filled, he resigned himself to the fact that she would probably be a big help trying to figure out how to do it. (Either that, or she would be the world’s biggest headache; he wasn’t sure which yet.)

When he finally got back to Yuma, carrying a broom and a paper bag with Rio’s dress in it (he’d felt pretty stupid lugging a broom all the way through the store), Yuma held up a little box and smiled. “I hope she likes it.”

“She will.”

He noticed a small bag from a store he knew they hadn’t been to tucked into a larger bag and wondered if it was a gift for him. His lips twitched at the sight of Yuma trying to balance all his purchases and offered to carry a few things. Predictably, he ended up carrying the broom, but the bemused expressions he got were tolerable enough.


	23. Party On, Shark

“Ryoga, quick sulking and get out here.”

“No.”

“You’re acting like a three year old.”

“Good.”

Ryoga sat on his bed, still in his pajamas, as Rio stood outside his locked door and tried to get him to come into the living room and help her finish cooking for the Christmas party that _she_ was hosting. He didn’t want to go to this party and didn’t particularly care that it was in his own apartment.

“Yuma’s going to be over in half an hour, do you really want him to see you in your pajamas?”

“I don’t care and I’m not leaving this room.”

He would have participated, albeit begrudgingly, if he hadn’t had a talk with her the night before about his probably romantic feelings for Yuma ( _probably, ha_ ) where she had given him an unwanted refresher course in primary school sex education.

“ _Ryoga_.”

“ _Rio_.”

He heard her sigh in frustration. “Is this about last night?”

“You think?”

“Ryoga, what did you expect me to say? _You’re_ the one with the crush. I can’t help you figure out what you want to say to him.”

“You could have said something like _just speak from the heart, Ryoga_ instead of reminding me about safe-”

“All right, geez. I’m sorry. Get dressed and be downstairs in ten minutes or I’m putting peppers in every single dish.”

“I’ll starve.”

“Good.”

Her footsteps retreated toward the kitchen and he sighed, burying his face in his pillow and letting out a frustrated yell.

Fifteen minutes later, he walked into the kitchen, still in his pajamas, to find Rio dicing a pepper.

“Are you putting that in the rice pudding?”

“I did say _every dish_ , Ryoga. You’re five minutes late.” She turned and eyed his pants. “And not dressed properly.”

She was wearing a blue party dress that glittered when she moved and a pair of heels. It was entirely too fancy for an informal Christmas party with the Numbers Club, and he didn’t particularly care what he looked like. “At least spare the rice pudding.” He wandered out of the kitchen and headed for the living room.

“All right, I guess you don’t mind Yuma seeing you in a pair of shark print jammies.”

He plopped on the couch and scowled.

It was maybe ten minutes before there was a knock at the door. He waited for Rio to get it, but she remained in the kitchen, so he sighed. _Guess I have to be the host if the hostess is too busy poisoning the rice pudding._

The entire Numbers Club stood at his door, so he assumed they had all travelled over here together, and there was a moment of silence as they all looked at Ryoga and his shark print pajamas.

“Are we early, or not?” Tokunosuke asked with absolutely no tact whatsoever.

“No.” Ryoga stepped back and held the door open for them to come in. After a moment of awkwardly exchanged glances, they filed in, with Yuma bringing up the rear.

“Hi, Shark. Your pants are pretty neat.”

Ryoga closed his eyes and resisted the urge to sigh again as he closed the door.

As it turned out, Rio had spared more than the rice pudding from the peppers ( _empty threats; I should have known better_ ) and what he did eat was _okay_ , because Rio wasn’t exactly the most domestic person on the planet, but everyone seemed to enjoy the food and the sparkling juice and nobody complained about the soft jazz music playing in the background. Even the party games were mildly entertaining, even if Yuma was the worst charades partner who ever lived (for someone so shy normally, Cathy was surprisingly good, so she and Kotori ended up winning). The class rep destroyed everyone at trivia, and they played about half an hour of Monopoly before Ryoga was fixing to punch Tokunosuke and his goddamn hotels in the face.

Tetsuo glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s getting late but it was really fun! Thanks for having us over, Rio-san.”

Rio smiled and climbed to her feet. “Thank you all for coming. Ryoga and I have little gifts for everyone…”

Ryoga froze for a moment before Rio pulled a small box filled with little goodie bags that she had clearly prepared well in advance from the both of them (which was a good thing because he hadn’t thought to get anything for any of them). She handed them out as they left, until Yuma was the last one there, and he lingered a bit too long by the door with his goodbyes, and Rio nudged her brother closer to him and excused herself to go clean up some of the dishes, so it was just Yuma and Ryoga by the front door.

“Um, sorry I’m not any good at charades,” Yuma said with a nervous laugh.

Ryoga shrugged. “I’m not really any good at it either.”

Yuma looked down and shifted his feet. “Well, um, thanks for… having us over…”

“It was all Rio’s idea.” Which was completely true, and the fact that Ryoga hadn’t bothered to change out of his pajamas made that completely evident.

“Were the decorations Rio’s idea too?” Yuma’s face was a bit pink and Ryoga had no idea what was going on.

“Yeah, why?”

Yuma flexed his fingers and took a deep breath before leaning up and pressing his lips to Ryoga’s cheek.

If Yuma’s face was pink before, now it was red, but Ryoga was pretty sure it wasn’t as red as his.

Yuma coughed gently and pointed up. “She put mistletoe up there.”

Ryoga’s eyes drifted upward. Sure enough, the plant dangled discreetly from a ceiling hook.

He didn’t know whether to be angry with Rio or relieved and he didn’t know what to do or say at this point so he clumsily bent to give Yuma a kiss on the lips-

“Yuma, hurry up!” Kotori’s voice called from down the hall, and Yuma turned his head in surprise just as Ryoga’s lips _would_ have made contact with Yuma’s, so instead he ended up kissing Yuma’s ear.

“Be right there!” Yuma called back, but he was smiling shyly and turned back to Ryoga, who was trying not to look too disappointed. “You and your sis are invited over tomorrow night,” he said, stepping out the door. “We can stay up for Santa.”

Ryoga nodded and wondered how devastated Yuma would be to find out Santa was actually his grandmother. “Yeah, that sounds good.”


	24. Power Outage

Snow swirled around the windows, piling on the window panes and making drifts in the yard. It had been snowing all day, since before Rio and Ryoga showed up at Yuma’s house to spend Christmas with the Tsukumo family, and it got colder and more intense as the day went on.

By dinnertime, it was getting colder _inside_ the house, and Akari excused herself to check the thermostat. Ryoga shivered as he pulled the skin from his fried chicken, and he wasn’t the only one. Rio had pulled on a jacket and was rubbing her feet together; Yuma visibly shook as he reached for his drink. Obomi alone was unfazed by the unusual chill.

Akari headed back into the kitchen, pulling on an oversized sweater, jaw clenched to keep her teeth from chattering. “The central heat in the city is down. There are some fallen trees that knocked out a couple of power sources to it.”

“When are they gonna get it back up?” Yuma said through chattering teeth.

Akari shrugged as she resumed eating. “They think it should be back up in a few hours since the main generator has to run heat to essential buildings in the city, but in the meantime, we’ll have to make do with blankets and sweaters.”

It wasn’t exactly how Ryoga would have wanted to spend Christmas Eve, but when the entire family and the twins piled into the living room and took refuge under an enormous quilt on the couch, it felt…

Well, it felt like he and Rio had a family again.

Yuma curled up between Akari and Ryoga as they sat around the inoperable gas fireplace, and finally Haru started telling stories. Some of them reminded Ryoga of the ones he had heard as they set up the tree in the corner. Some were sad tales of sick and missing parents that drew moisture to the corners of his eyes (though he adamantly refused to let them spill over), and others were ridiculous tales of Santa Claus doing physically impossible things (like, as Astral said, eating millions of calories worth of milk and cookies in a single night and travelling the planet at impossible speeds to drop gifts down chimneys that were inevitably better gifts for rich kids and sometimes no gifts at all for the poor kids because Santa is clearly operating on a capitalist hierarchy) but Yuma smiled and leaned into Ryoga’s shoulder as he drifted off to sleep, and before he knew it, Yuma had cuddled up next to Ryoga with his arm across Ryoga’s waist under the quilt and Ryoga cast a nervous glance at Akari, who smiled at the wall.

Rio nudged him and leaned against his back. “Body heat,” she whispered, and Ryoga flushed with embarrassment.

He carefully moved his arm until it reached across Yuma’s body, and he held his sleeping friend close while his sister leaned into him from the other side, and he couldn’t speak for them, but it seemed ten degrees warmer to him.

Haru and Akari slipped out from under the quilt after a bit, taking care not to stir Yuma, and when Ryoga was pretending to sleep, they each brought in an armful of presents and arranged them under the tree before slipping out, Akari whispering about how the heat should be kicking back on soon.

Yuma kept sleeping and Ryoga rested his head on Yuma’s and smiled, and maybe it was uncomfortable craning his neck like that but it was worth it.

When Yuma woke up, he was going to be so disappointed that he’d gone another year without seeing Santa putting presents under the tree.


	25. Ryoga Finally Stops Being a Weenie

Somehow during the night, Yuma, Ryoga, and Rio had all ended up lying tangled together on the sofa and Rio had ended up with the entire quilt. It was all right though, because it was warm now, and the gas fire was going, and the firelight reflected off the shiny wrapping paper and the ice on the window.

Yuma yawned and stretched in Ryoga’s arms at the smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchen, accidentally bopping him on the nose, and sat up, startled. “Shark, what-”

Ryoga rubbed his nose and gave Yuma a weak smile. “Looks like we all fell asleep last night.”

“Aw man!” Yuma pouted. “I missed Santa _again_!”

Rio stifled a yawn of her own and sat up, clutching the quilt around her. “It’s okay, Yuma. There’s always next year.”

“Yeah…” Yuma picked up a plate sitting on the coffee table. “At least Santa ate all his cookies!”

(When Haru and Akari both ate small breakfasts, Ryoga knew that Santa sure did eat all those cookies.)

After breakfast, Haru ushered them back into the living room and sat them all on the couch, kneeling by the tree to pick up presents that she handed to the three teens and Akari. Ryoga and Rio exchanged nervous glances at the gifts they had been given, but Akari gave them a friendly smile.

“You two are part of Yuma’s family, you know!”

Yuma was tearing into his gifts, giving loud commentary about _how cool this is_ and _this is a really nice jacket!_ At an encouraging nod from Akari, the Kamishiros pulled the paper from their gifts and held up nice new blazers – certainly expensive ones – in blue and purple. Rio stared at hers for a moment before her face crumpled and she had to cover her face in embarrassment to hide her tears.

Haru immediately sat on the sofa and wrapped a reassuring arm around her. “We’re grateful for your friendship of our Yuma. You mean a lot to him, so you mean a lot to us too.”

Rio sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “That’s very kind of you, Grandma Haru.” She held her blazer close. “Oh, we have gifts for you as well…”

Ryoga had almost forgotten about the bag with the gifts in it that they had brought with and stood up to get them. Haru unwrapped the bakeware set and wrapped the twins in a tight hug, which set Rio off again. Ryoga could understand. Neither of them had received gifts from someone else since their parents had died.

For the first time in years, they could feel like part of a family.

When Haru finally let them go, Ryoga remembered the last two gifts he had, and he handed Rio a shoddily wrapped parcel, which she rolled her eyes at before revealing the party dress. Her eyes sparkled and she held it up. “Ooh, it’s beautiful.” She checked the tag. “And it’s the right size! That’s impressive, Ryoga, thank you.”

Ryoga grunted _you’re welcome_ and decided against telling her that he’d tried on three dresses in the changing room before he could determine her size. There were just some things she didn’t really _need_ to know.

Her return gift to him was a sturdy new deck case, which was a welcome present seeing as his current case had cracks in it from landing on it so often. He gave her a gentle hug. “Thank you, Rio.”

“Shark’s sis, I got something for you!” Yuma pulled out a thin box. “I think it’ll look nice with your dress.”

She smiled at the star-shaped amethyst necklace. “It’s beautiful. You didn’t need to spend this much on me, though.”

Yuma laughed nervously and scratched his nose. “Ah, well, it’s not a real gem. It’s fake. But it’s still pretty, right?”

Ryoga resisted the urge to bury his face in his hand but Rio laughed before pulling Yuma into a hug. “You’re not supposed to say that, Yuma. But I will treasure it.”

There was a long pause as Rio released him and Ryoga gripped the bag with Yuma’s gift in it. He didn’t really want to give it to Yuma while his family was watching; it was a personal thing and he’d spent the past few days reciting how this was going to happen. Fortunately, Rio seemed to get the hint.

“Um, Grandma Haru, Akari-san, should we clean the breakfast dishes while Yuma and Ryoga tidy up in here?”

“Mm, that sounds like a good idea,” Akari agreed, and the three of them headed into the kitchen, leaving Ryoga sitting at the edge of the sofa next to Yuma.

He had maybe five minutes before they were done cleaning up the kitchen, so he couldn’t afford to waste time. “Yuma,” he began cautiously, holding out the bag, “this is for you.”

Yuma took the bag and opened it. He pulled out the stuffed shark that he had made at the mall a few weeks ago and bit his lip. Ryoga waited.

“This is yours,” Yuma said quietly, not looking at him.

“I want you to have it.” Ryoga took a deep breath. “Because… remember what the lady said? You write your name on the heart, and then put it inside your animal…”

“Because that way, part of your heart will always be in it.”

Ryoga nodded. This was as far as he’d gotten in three weeks of trying to tell Yuma that, in more ways than one, he really did hold a piece of Ryoga’s heart. No matter what, he’d do it this time. “It’s, um, kind of cheesy, but… I wanted to give you this shark because… I wanted to give you…” _Come on Ryoga, you’re almost there._ “I wanted to give you my heart because you have mine.”

Yuma’s eyes widened but he didn’t move, didn’t look up, didn’t say anything. Ryoga closed his eyes and let out a low breath. Now, regardless of what Yuma said or did or how awkward or whatever their friendship was going to be and even if Yuma turned him down, he’d at least said what he’d wanted to say, what he’d _needed_ to say, and-

His eyes snapped open as Yuma wrapped his arms around Ryoga’s waist and leaned his head on Ryoga’s chest. “Shark, you didn’t need to give me the shark plushie to tell me that, you know.”

Ryoga hesitatingly put his arms around Yuma’s shoulders and rested his chin on the top of Yuma’s head. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You’re silly.” He could feel Yuma smiling into his chest.

“I am not.”

“Yes huh.” Yuma pulled back, a shy grin on his face. “I have a present for you, Shark.”

 _Oh._ “All right.”

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“C’mon, just do it for me.”

Ryoga sighed but obliged. He almost pulled back as Yuma grabbed him by the hand and wrapped what felt like a threaded bracelet around his wrist. He couldn’t help but smile.

And then he felt Yuma’s puckered lips inexpertly touch his, and his eyes snapped open.

Yuma pulled back, face red, and he looked away. “I didn’t say to open your eyes, Shark.”

“I didn’t know how else to react to that,” Ryoga said with a nervous laugh. He looked down at his wrist and found a beautifully threaded friendship bracelet in purple and green. “This is really nice. Thank you.”

“I went through about nine of them before I made one good enough to give to you.”

Ryoga reached up and touched Yuma’s cheek, feeling the warmth spreading from Yuma’s face through his fingertips. He returned the novice kiss and locked eyes with Yuma. “Anything from you is good enough for me.”

They heard footsteps leaving the kitchen and pulled apart with a slight jump, realizing that they had been volunteered to clean up the wrapping paper strewn across the living room.

As they shoved paper in a trash bag, Yuma looked up and smiled. It was only midmorning, but it was the best Christmas Ryoga had ever experienced.


End file.
